


(Believe what you read) We are the shaken, We are the monsters

by RavensandWritingDesks2714



Category: Cinderbrush (Web Video), Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Additional relationships include: Cameron/The Voices in his head, Aff/The Wolf running around in the woods that nobody talks about but knows not to feed, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Enjoy my meager contribution, Everyone is a mess but they are loved anyway, F/F, F/M, Game Mechanics as Plot Devices, Gen, Heed the tags!!!!, I have so many feelings about these kids, I know weed and that's it, I mean if you watched the one shot, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jamie Wrenly needs better coping mechanisms, Jamie/Whatever Eldritch Being is cohabiting his body, Liberal use of parenthesis and italics as literary devices, M/M, Multi, My drug knowledge is not Taliesin's drug knowledge, Playing fast and loose with ages, Playing fast and loose with the mythos, Sasha is her own warning, Sasha/The succubus she occasionally (often) turns into, This one shot was perfection, Underage Drinking, Underage Drug Use, Unreliable Narrator, Warning Tags Include: Cam's Dad as a Warning of his own, What do you get when you cross hormones with teenagers and then throw in secret monsters?, You can expect similar content here, You get a mess, a mess, so many feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:54:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 44,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22822102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavensandWritingDesks2714/pseuds/RavensandWritingDesks2714
Summary: On being so much more and all that entails.A look at the Core Four before, during, and after.
Relationships: Cameron Solomon/Abigail "Aff" Flowers, Cameron Solomon/Sasha Murasaki, Jamie Wrenly/Cameron Solomon, Jamie Wrenly/Cameron Solomon/Abigail "Aff" Flowers/Sasha Murasaki, Sasha Murasaki/Abigail "Aff" Flowers
Comments: 84
Kudos: 164





	1. How can I sleep if I don't have dreams? (I just have nightmares)

**Author's Note:**

> This is just my own attempt to make sense of my thoughts and perspectives on the one shot; trying to keep it relatively short, but we'll see how it goes. 
> 
> This will be dark. There will be violence. There will (eventually) be sexual situations, nothing too explicit but it will be there. Tags will be updated as this goes along. 
> 
> In the meantime, I hope you will all enjoy. 
> 
> *In the beginning of this story, Cameron uses he/him pronouns when referring to Jamie, as he does not yet know Jamie's preferred pronouns/Jamie hasn't told him yet. Cameron also uses she/her pronouns in a past tense referral to Aff before they identified the way they do now.*

**Cam**

_You can be so much more than this,_ the voices tell him.

It’s easy to believe it like this, with his back pressed to the wall and his dad’s fingers gripping his shoulder so tightly it hurts even through his letterman jacket, his mom watching from behind the oh so spotless kitchen counter.

“I don’t know why you keep insisting on throwing away every opportunity you’re given,” his dad says, fingers tightening further. “You can be so much more than this, Cam.”

It’s harder to believe it when his dad says it, grey eyes steely and cold, voice always so disappointed. As if the blood dripping from the back of his hand and staining the front of Cam’s shirt is entirely his own fault.

“Yeah, well,” Cam manages hoarsely. Always fucking hoarse with him, as if everything Cam does is just a string for his dad to strangle him with. “I’m trying.”

It sounds pathetic even to his ears, and he watches out of the corner of his eyes as his dad’s jaw clenches.

“Not hard enough,” he bites out, and Cam’s eyes flick up sharply.

 _Well what do you expect?_ He almost snaps. _It’s not like I have a quiet place to study, not when you’re here._ If _you’re here._

The words are on the tip of his tongue, and he can see the way his dad’s chin lifts, as if daring him to spit them out. Instead he bites his already splitting lip, hard enough to drown out the taste of the words with the taste of copper, and his dad spits a disgusted noise and backs away. The front door slams behind him almost seconds later, and Cam grinds his teeth against his lip until his eyes start to water, breathing for as long as he dares before turning towards the staircase.

“Cameron.”

He stops. Turns back to face the impervious gaze of his mother. She eyes him through the open entrance, lingering on the bruise no doubt already forming on the side of his face.

“You shouldn’t have pushed him.”

“Fuck you, mom,” he spits, because he can, and stomps up the stairs. He slams his bedroom door behind him, and it’s stupid and petty and childish but he doesn’t give a shit because it’s all he has.

He’s stripping his quickly turning rust-stained shirt when he feels the tingle on the back of his neck. It’s all the warning he gets before it starts again, slow and vicious, a brutal breath in his ears.

_Pathetic. Weak! You could do so much more…I can give you so much more than this…._

“Shut up,” he snaps to the air, and the voice hisses a laugh that splits and fractures into multiple cackles at once, vibrating thick through his skull.

_Foolish boy. You will never be strong enough…you will never conquer…you will never be more than this._

He throws his shoes across the room, the impact against the wall scattering the cruel words, but not the shadows, which seem to thicken and writhe, swelling to consume him. He doesn’t realize he’s shaking until he reaches for his phone, and he bites out curses through his teeth as he swipes it open and tries to figure out….

Fucking weak.

And that’s just him now, shaking like a fucking _child_ and calling for help like the problem isn’t just entirely him.

His hands hover over Sasha’s name, and he knows for a fact that the last thing he wants is to involve her in any of this.

There’s a flash and the shadows leap that much higher, and the fear sparks so sharp in his chest it’s almost a physical pain. He doesn’t realize he’s even moved until there’s the dull echo of a ring in his ears, and he realizes he’s pressed himself into the space between his bed and the wall, the corner awkward and tight against his shoulder and the shadows tight against everything else and he can’t breathe he can’t breathe he can’t---

“Hello?”

The voice burbles thick and confused in his ear, and it’s a _solid_ voice, a heavy voice. A real voice.

Cam licks his lips, opens his mouth. Freezes.

“Cameron?”

“Can…could you come over?”

The words almost choke him on the way out, and he’s shaking even harder now and fuck this, to be honest, but it’s this or---

“I mean. I _could_ ,” the voice drawls out, still slightly confused but bored now, that familiar thick boredom that usually Cam could pick his way through to the truth, but now only serves to heighten his terror.

“Jamie, _please_.”

He’s gripping the phone way too tight but the shadows are impossibly thick now and he can’t even see anything and he’s drowning he’s dying he can’t possibly---

A sigh.

He flinches so hard he slams his head against the wall, and he might have been able to say he could see stars if only the shadows weren’t swallowing those up, too.

“I’ll be right there.”

And then there’s silence.

Had that been a whine in Jamie’s voice?

Oh. No, that was just Cam.

Fucking weak. Fucking pathetic. Fuck---

_Worthless._

No.

_Too afraid to accept the inevitable. A failure. Too weak._

No.

_You could be…so much…more._

No!

“Well this is just sad.”

Cam looks up, not even bothering to silence his gasp at the sudden voice. A real voice. A safe voice.

“Jamie, I can’t see.”

“You have to open your eyes, genius.”

Cam tries to tell him that that won’t work.

Instead he opens his eyes…and sees Jamie staring at him from the doorway, apprehension on his face and framing the red glasses.

“See,” Jamie says, but doesn’t move.

“Jamie?”

“Oh good god,” Jamie huffs, and enters the room. Cam doesn’t quite see what he does, wedged into the corner as he is, but there’s a shuffle of movement and an odd spark of noise, and a weird smell fills the air.

It’s something sharp and heady and slightly familiar, but Cam can’t quite place it. He takes a couple deep breaths to try, and realizes when he does that he’s stopped shaking.

“Please tell me this isn’t another one of your teen crises, or whatever,” Jamie drawls from above him, and Cam tilts his head back to see Jamie laying on his stomach on his bed, glaring down at him over his red shades.

“We’re the same age,” he mutters, narrowing his eyes right back.

“Oh shush,” Jamie hisses, but Cam can see relief in the glint of his eyes right before he slides the shades back up to cover them. “Are you coming out of there or should I just go back home? You know I was kinda in the middle of something important.”

“No, I’ll um. Yeah.”

Cam awkwardly shoves his way out the tight space, and he wonders how the hell he’d gotten into it in the first place, and then also why the _fuck_ had he gone and called _Jamie_?

“That’s better,” Jamie quips from the bed, eyeing Cam slightly. “Still depressing, but better.”

Cam tries hard to ignore Jamie as he goes about trying to make it look like he hadn’t just been losing his shit. Namely, by putting on a shirt. And then, by making sure whatever Jamie was burning wasn’t actively burning anything in his room. It’s a small candle, he notices, when he scans his eyes over his table, and Jamie had it considerately placed on a small plate, in such a way to avoid the books stacked there. Cam can’t hide his flinch at the way the flickering flame makes the shadows around it jump, and he hears Jamie hum as he bends to grab a hoodie off his floor.

“You want to…I don’t know…talk…about it? Fuck, is that what people do?”

“Not really,” Cam mutters, sitting in his desk chair and spinning it to kind of face where Jamie was laying. “I mean, people do, I just…don’t.”

“Good,” Jamie sighs dramatically, and Cam doesn’t know if this is making him feel better or worse.

“It’s just…”

“Ahp!” Jamie says, holding up a stern finger. “You said we weren’t doing that, so instead we’re doing the next best thing. Distractions.”

“What?” Cam blurts dumbly, staring as Jamie digs through the folds of the cloak he’s wearing and produces two familiar looking objects.

“Distractions,” Jamie repeats through a wicked grin, and Cam pauses for all of a second before returning it.

“Yeah, ok.”

* * *

He’s well on his way to high and mostly starting to genuinely enjoy Jamie’s company when the front door slams again. Jamie sits up and somehow makes it look languid and intentional, whereas Cam sits up sharp and abrupt and sucks his next breath a little too sharply.

“Hm.”

He can feel Jamie’s eyes on him but he’s lost to it now, body tight and ears straining to track the sound of footsteps. There’s a muffled burble of sound, thick and too close together, followed abruptly by a higher, faster burst of noise. Relief hits just as strongly as the anxiety, and the combination only serves to make him feel sick and the sound crescendos until there is no mistaking what it is.

“Well,” Jamie says briskly, as the harsh bellow of his parents’ voices continues. “No wonder you’re such a fucking mess.”

“Fuck you,” Cam snaps, because he can, because it’s all he has.

“Hm. Not yet, I don’t think,” Jamie drawls, and Cam almost misses his next words as his brain stutters because, wait. what? “And anyway, don’t get me wrong. I love messes. Gives me something to do.”

“I--” Cam says.

Something breaks downstairs and the yelling pitches dangerously.

“Oh come _on_ ,” Jamie sighs, and stands. He licks his fingers and crosses the room, reaching over Cam to snuff the candle. Both candle and plate go safely back into the folds of his cloak, and he shuffles over and throws open the window, tossing Cam’s shoes back as he does.

“What?” Cam says, and Jamie looks back over his shoulder with a look that is impossible to place.

“I’m doing something stupid,” Jamie says seriously. “I need you to be my impulse control.”

Cam still hasn’t quite caught by the time Jamie is staring at him from the other side of his window, crouched on his roof.

“Also bring your car keys. It’s a bit far to scooter.”

Cam _still_ hasn’t caught up, but he hears Jamie drop to the grass outside, and he somehow knows despite the muffled swear that it had been just as smooth and intentional as every move Jamie made. And he’s not even trying to process his thoughts anymore, just thinking them, and as the arguing dies down and the trod of footsteps grows a bit heavier and much closer, Cam thinks that whatever Jamie has in store for him is a much better option than what his father does.

So he grabs his car keys from his jacket pocket and swings himself through the window, not even bothering to slide it shut behind him. Jamie is waiting at the garage door, and emboldened by…whatever the fuck this is, Cam doesn’t even go for subtle as he flings the door up. The car is started and Jamie’s comments go unbothered- “Your car is just as pretentious as you are”- and Cam is itching now, vibrating with some kind of energy. Or maybe that’s the weed.

Either way, they’re pulling out of the drive, and Cam pretends not to hear his dad’s angry shout as they speed off and out of his neighborhood. Jamie directs in short points and even shorter syllables, and about halfway there, Cam recognizes where they’re going.

“Wait, why are we going to the quarry?”

Jamie presses his lips together in the passenger seat, then gives Cam a look. Or, he’s assuming there’s a look. He definitely doesn’t take his eyes off the road, and definitely doesn’t get red in the face from a look from _Jamie_ of all people.

“I told you,” Jamie finally says. “You’re my impulse control.”

Cam thinks that Jamie could probably have picked a better person for that. Cam can barely control his own demons, never mind whatever it was that Jamie had gotten into. Because it’s obvious that Jamie had gotten into something, Cam just doesn’t know what.

* * *

“Oh.”

Cam knows what.

It’s hard to miss, with the collection of wax candles melting in every corner of this hidden place they stand in. Where there’s not a candle, there’s a book, and where there’s not a book, there’s jars. Mason jars and oddly shaped bottles with honest to god corks in them and holy fucking _fuck_ that’s a real skull.

“Jamie, what the hell.”

Jamie doesn’t look at Cam as he answers, just slides over to the stone wall to his left and pokes at one of the bricks.

“Don’t touch anything. Something tells me you don’t want to kill anyone today.”

“Seriously?”

Jamie turns back from the brick with-- it looks like a small coin purse, but there’s something about the way the fabric rolls with whatever’s inside that unsettles Cameron.

“Deadly,” Jamie says, and he’s grinning but there’s something almost feral in it, and Cam is for once grateful he can’t tell if the look in Jamie’s eyes matches.

“You uh…said something about impulse control?” he tries, and Jamie pauses, then seems to shake out of…whatever he’d been in.

“Oh,” he says, glancing down at the pouch in his hands. “Right. About that.”

“Yeah, I kind of figured it was just an excuse,” Cam mumbles, rubbing his hands vigorously through his hair and pretending he wasn’t affected.

Stupid of him to think that he was anything more than an excuse; an excuse for his dad’s disappointment and anger, an excuse for Sasha’s disgust in him. Why should _Jamie_ see him any differently?

“No, it’s only that I’d already…what are you doing?”

Cam lifts his head from the waxy gravel he’d been poking with his foot to see Jamie peering over his glasses at him, gray eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“What?” Cam asks, and Jamie makes a vague gesture with his hands, eyes still skeptical, but just a hint judgmental now.

“That…weird thing you’re doing with your hair,” Jamie says, and he’s definitely judging now.

Cam frowns, running his fingers even harder against the hair at the back of his skull, his palms dragging the strands up and down across his folded fingers, until it starts to pile at the back of his head.

“What thing?”

Jamie opens his mouth, then closes it tightly.

Cam drops his hands with an audible thump to his sides, and Jamie opens his mouth again, and then closes it again, and Cam bites his lip hard and looks away.

“I dunno, it’s just--” _Comforting_ “--stupid,” Cam mumbles through his teeth, focusing on the weird substance filling the jar in front of him to keep from looking over at Jamie.

“Far be it for me to judge your particular coping mechanisms,” Jamie mutters, and his tone tries for scathing, but with the way he looks at Cam out of the corner of his eyes Cam can almost pretend it’s concern. “Just…if it gets…bad, I guess…. _Fuck_ I said I wasn’t going to do this. So much for fucking impulse control."

The ragged growl rips lethal and exasperated from Jamie’s throat, lips pulling back from his teeth and contorting his features until all Cam could see was anger, all he could feel was disgust. It sinks into his gut like something molten, then hardens until he can’t move, until his breaths come shallow and harsh, and his ears start to ring with the force of it all.

“Do what?” he manages, and he bites it out through his own teeth, sharp and defensive.

Jamie pauses at his tone, and Cam would scoff because _he’d_ started it, but then Jamie pauses some more, and Cam can see the wrinkles forming in the furrow of his brow.

“Talk, Cameron,” Jamie says. It’s not an answer. It’s a demand.

Cam snaps. He _feels_ something snap, and he snarls out a vicious noise not unlike the one that Jamie had just made, and spins furious and dark to the nearest wall. He’s unaware of what he’s doing until he’d drawn his fist back, but even the lurch in his stomach at the realization does nothing to stop the impact of his hand to the brick. He does it again, then again, and he’s only aware that he’s screaming because it’s buzzing through his teeth, vibrating through his skull and settling in a ringing in his ears.

“Are you done talking to the wall?” Jamie drawls when he finishes, his voice is cold and entirely without sympathy. “Jesus _fuck_ Cameron, if I’d known it was this bad….”

“You’d _what_?” Cam spits, and he turns on Jamie so fast the edges of his vision goes dark. “What can _you_ fucking do, Jamie? Aside from your usual judgmental _bullshit_.”

Something flashes across Jamie’s face, but he doesn’t say anything, just tightens his jaw, and it just infuriates Cam further because even fucking now---

“You want me to _talk_?” he hisses, and for a second his voice is not his own. “About what, how I barely feel in control of myself anymore? How fucking _Sasha_ made feel like…like I was the best thing in the world but a shadow of myself at the same time? How I had to put all that aside and push her away when--”

He stops, catching himself. Jamie shifts minutely, just a slight tilt of his head, but it’s enough for Cameron to come back to himself. He drops his chin, hands finding the back of his head and rubbing hard and damn he wishes he had his beanie because at least he could pretend to be normal and not look like some kind of freak. Not to _Jamie_ of all people.

“Hm,” Jamie says, and Cam risks peeking up to see the muscles of Jamie’s face drawn tight, eyes dark and inscrutable as he stares at Cam over his glasses. “So that’s what that is then.”

Cam blinks and realizes his eyes are burning, that the shadows he’d thought had been spilling into the cave due to the dipping sun, had actually been coming from him. 

“I--”

“Let me know when it starts asking,” Jamie says briskly, adjusting his glasses and turning away as if it was nothing. As if _Cam_ were nothing. He comes back with two tablets in his hand that for all the world look like regular painkillers. Knowing Jamie, they are most definitely not regular anything.

“In the meantime,” Jamie continues, extending the pills with hardly a glance in Cam’s direction. “This’ll keep things quiet. For a bit.”

Cam doesn’t ask. He’s too— _pathetic_ —wrung out. He can feel the burn of the ropes as he accepts the drugs and swallows them dry, knows that he’s handing Jamie the tools needed to hang him. It’s only a matter of when Jamie wants to _pull_ ….

“I should get back,” Jamie says, before Cam can decide how he feels about the rope around his neck, that Jamie now holds in his hands. “My mom will be home soon.”

And like that it’s done, and Cam is suddenly reminded that of his own waiting parents. Or, one of them, at least.

“Right,” he says thickly, voice hoarse. “Yeah. Ok.”

Jamie doesn’t need to, but he still directs on the way home, pointing out slightly better side roads to avoid the police routes and curfews. His voice is quiet, still those short syllables, but it fills something that had been hollowing in Cam for a while without him realizing it. He’s grinning when he gets home, just a little turn of his lips, but it’s enough. Even when his dad yells and confiscates his car keys, leaving a few more bruises behind as he does, Cam goes to bed…content …with the sharp and familiar smell of Jamie’s candle still lingering. The scent of Jamie.

And then Aff arrives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title: Monsters by Matchbook Romance
> 
> Chapter: Staying Up by The Neighborhood


	2. Honey, make this easy (don't feed me, I will come back)

**Aff**

Violence had always come easily to Aff. Back as a kid, back when they’d still been _Abby_ , had been _she_ , their mother had always remarked on how wild they were, how untamed. Not content in the dresses and skirts their mother would try to make them wear in an attempt to domesticate them, to make them _feminine_ and _pretty_ and _docile_. The skirts were more likely to be discarded than worn, the dresses torn and ripped from climbing trees, or wrestling in the mud. Their mother gave up by the time they were twelve or so, when it became apparent that there was just… _something_ in Aff that refused to be quieted.

Restless. Aff had been restless as a kid. The violence came later, but easier. It’s so easy to be violent when people give you a reason to.

They remember liking wolves a lot as a kid. (They don’t remember being made into one.) They remember reading, random books and facts and myths, later. After.

The myths never agreed on the exact origin, but they all agreed that while it didn’t _have_ to be violent, violence inevitably played some part in it all. Mostly in the form of pitchforks and torches, chains and cages.

Aff doesn’t remember it. (Aff remembers after, remembers the faded pink and white scars littering their body, the small raised dots along the underside of their jaw, smooth to the touch and unmistakably the place where feral teeth had wrapped around and _pulled_.)

Aff tries not to think about it.

Aff remembers _after._ Remembers the shifting, roiling restlessness in their body, so familiar and yet foreign all at once. Remembers the heat and the pain. Remembers running, headlong and desperate into the woods, tearing their clothes from their body out of some base instinct. Aff doesn’t remember anything else.

(Remembers screaming. Remembers howling. Remembers running.)

It got easier, after that first time. Easier to ignore the urges and the longing for freedom. Easier to find a way back to domesticity. Back to being _tame_.

Except when they got angry.

Then things got hard. Got _messy._

The courtroom had been the worst day of their life. Not just for…everything. Not just the lack of sympathy, and the blank looks, and the unspoken worries of ‘where did society fail?’ and ‘are you going to turn out the same way? turn out twisted, turn out broken, turn out _wrong?_ ’

Aff tries not to remember much of the courtroom; doesn’t remember the rambling of the judge or the quiet weeping of their mother. They do remember the hunch of their dad’s shoulders, how small he’d been. How submissive…defeated. It had sickened Aff more than anything else had, had torn at that primal thing inside and made it snarl, because how _dare_ anything make their father look like that.

Aff hadn’t cared much about the guy thing. The cheating thing hurt worse, because there was that small scared kid part of them that wondered ‘was it me? why wasn’t I good enough?’

The judge had ruled in favor of their mother, because of course they had, why wouldn’t they? (It was the guy thing. It was always the guy thing, with situations like this.)

But through all of that the courtroom had been the worst because they had tried to rule that Aff would go with their mother. Like they were just another possession to be split with the parents as with any divorce. (Except to the papers, and to Aff’s mom’s family, and to Aff’s dad’s secret lover’s family. To them it’s the guy thing. It’s always the guy thing.)

Mom gets the porcelain lamp.

Dad gets the leather sofa.

Dad gets the coffee table.

Mom gets their child.

Aff though they’d held it together pretty well all things considered.

(Later, they would remember howling. Remember screaming. Remember violence.)

Their mom had never liked violence.

(Mom gets the coffee table.)

(Dad gets Aff.)

Aff gets therapy. Gets drugs that make them throw up, that takes the primal, wild thing inside and kills it slowly, until Aff wants nothing more than to claw the skin from their bones.

Aff had protested violently to the therapy because they weren’t fucking _crazy_ —then the talk turned to _putting_ them somewhere, as if Aff were a thing to be put. As if they hadn’t just been trying to _understand_ , in the only way they knew how.

So Aff had agreed to more therapy, and when the new therapist quit after Aff had thrown the woman’s mug at her (she’d called them _Abigail_ ) Aff agreed to the anger management, too. Anything to keep their dad from looking so small, so lost.

And then Aff’s dad gets fired.

The second time is the worst. Aff remembers needing to get _out_ to run away, to not be _here_. Remembers feeling too hot too big too _much_ for their body. They’d barely made it outside before quite literally tearing out of their skin, but then it hadn’t mattered because they were _running_.

Aff’s dad finds a job in Arizona. Before they leave, Aff dumps the rest of their pills down their shitty toilet.

Except in Arizona, their dad makes them keep up with the anger management, because somehow, someone _knows_ and says something in passing, and Aff had gotten their hands on them. (Had wanted to get their _teeth_ in them, had wanted to latch them to the vulnerable places in their throat and _pull._ )

Anger management was bullshit in the way the courtroom had been bullshit, in the way their mother’s forced dresses were bullshit. It was all about containing and taming and it roiled against something innately in Aff, to the point where even one falsely soothing word in their direction would set them off. People weren’t made to be choked off from their emotions like this, to be set into expectations of what they were supposed to be right off the bat, right from birth. Where was the sky? Where was the dirt and the air and the blood?

And then, three weeks in, Cameron Solomon had shown up.

* * *

Cameron Solomon had shown up to anger management, slinking in during the usual bullshit spiel about what to do when things got _bad_ , eyes downcast and flickering, shoulders hunched in that familiar way that screamed submission. It roiled at that wild thing deep inside Aff because of all people, Cameron Solomon was not one to submit to anything. Cameron Solomon, the boy with two last names, from that one summer all those years ago. Cameron, who had been Cam; who had been the crazy kid who put ice in the counselor’s sleeping bags and caught fish with his bare hands to scare all the girls with.

(Not Aff. They hadn’t quite felt like a girl, then, but hadn’t been enough to where they were now to know any better.)

Cameron, who Aff had kissed on the last day off camp, after they’d stolen a canoe together to try and take it on the lake because fuck, what was the point of a lake if not to put boats on it?

Cameron Solomon had shown up to anger management, head low and eyes defeated. And had kept showing up. And showing up. And showing up.

And Aff had watched him, unable to look away. He never looked up, never made eye contact with anyone in the room. (Never look at _them_ , in the corner by the coffee, watching like a creep.) He never spoke, or participated. Just listened and left. And listened and left.

Until one of the other detainees had started on a story about control. And Aff had watched as Cameron’s jaw got tight and his arms folded over his chest and his foot started bouncing on the floor. Until his head started to shake and a crooked smile had twisted his lips and a raspy chuckle had bubbled up from his chest.

“Is there something you’d like to share?” The anger coach had said, at the same time the detainee had scowled and snapped “The fuck’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” Cameron had said, that smirk still on his face, head still shaking. “Just…this whole thing is bullshit. I mean, what do _you_ even know about control?”

He’d snapped his hand out towards the standing detainee, and the shadows had jumped.

“You can barely control yourself, and yet you’re standing there with the nerve to try and teach all of us how _easy_ it is. It’s not fucking easy!”

Aff had watched something crawl into Cameron’s eyes, into his posture, straightening and twisting until they were almost certain he was no longer _just_ Cameron.

“It’s not fucking easy, it’s a game, and you have no right to try and play at it. You’re just…weak. Pathetic. You’re all just fucking….”

And then Aff watched as Cameron’s eyes, which had been sweeping in vicious mockery of the room, finally settle on them, in the corner by the coffee. Had watched the color drain from Cameron’s face. (The shadows looked darker, by comparison. Like they were feeding off of something in Cameron and had been cut off suddenly.)

“Fuck,” Cameron had whispered. And then left, kicking an empty chair on his way and slamming the door behind him.

Aff hadn’t hesitated to bolt after because what the fuck? What the fuck? Cameron Solomon, _what the fuck_?

He’s gone by the time they reach the hallway, and Aff had gone home late and torn out of their skin and run until the world went away.

The roiling wild feeling didn’t go away, though, and so it’s all too easy to give in to the feral instincts when they kick in the next morning. When they walk into their new school too early and too _much_ for it all, when they spot some jock leaning against the lockers, so utterly at ease with himself and his space that it’s impossible to mistake him as anything but an alpha. Impossible to mistake what is definitely going to be a wicked bruise, by the time Aff pulls away. Or…is pulled away. They don’t really remember.

But it settles the frantic buzzing in their head enough to make it to the classroom, satisfied that they’d made some of their point.

(Until Cameron Solomon had walked into their homeroom classroom, because obviously Fate had it out for Aff.)

It was going to be a long semester.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It will come back by Hozier
> 
> Breezeblocks by Alt-J


	3. And baby I understand that you're making new friends (this is how you get by)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Sasha uses he/him pronouns when referring to Jamie, as she does in the one-shot. I've developed some plot reasons as to why that is, and it will be addressed. Just wanted to make you aware.*

**Sasha**

And then Aff arrives, and Sasha isn’t sure how she feels about it.

There is a _newness_ to, well, The New Kid. They are fresh, entirely. Unspoiled yet to Arizona, to Cinderbrush. To _Sasha_.

(The New Kid has a practiced air about them.)

The way they walk into the room, shoulders hunched but eyes sharp, eyes wary.

(They’ve done this before, in some way. They know just how to hold themselves, just how to simper and sink into the background and huff and smile and _act._ )

The New Kid is eyeing Cameron, and Cameron is eyeing The New Kid, and Sasha begins to reevaluate.

( _Jamie_ is eyeing The New Kid, and Sasha _definitely_ reevaluates, then.)

_Fresh meat._

Sasha watches Jamie glance disinterestedly down at his phone, then back up at the on projection on the board at the classroom.

_On it._

Cameron glances down at his phone a moment later, entirely unsubtle, and Sasha barely keeps from rolling her eyes. But pretty much everything about Cameron was unsubtle, so Sasha supposes she can forgive him for that.

(Not for breaking her heart. But she can work around that.)

Whatever Cameron texts back has Jamie smirking, just a tad, and leaning over to Evan. Evan slouches forward, lips crooking in that twisted way of his, and Jamie’s grin grows just a bit more.

Sasha’s screen lights up in her lap, while Jamie’s fingers tap a rhythm on the rim of his glasses.

_Definitely interesting._

_Entrance exam at lunch._

♥

Jamie’s fingers dance along the brim of his hat, and Sasha grins.

* * *

_**Then** _

A hand catches the back of Sasha’s elbow, and it’s only because she can feel the edges of metal against her skin that when she turns, she doesn’t eviscerate the person where they stand.

“Sasha Murasaki,” the person drawls out, deliberate and delighted.

It takes Sasha a second too long, because that sort of self-satisfied delight could only come from one person, and the appearance of the individual before her doesn’t match the image in her head.

“Jamie Wrenly,” Sasha croons back, as easy as if she hadn’t faltered at the long skirt, the red velvet cloak, the red glasses, the twisting red and black hair.

“I like the hat,” she continues, leaning against the locker beside her, arms folding _just so_ beneath her chest.

Jamie _grins_ , and the glasses tilt down enough that Sasha can see his eyes flash knowingly. 

“Cute,” Jamie says, and the grin tightens on his face. “But that’s not what I’m here for.”

_Not yet._

“Not yet,” she says, head lilting back and lips falling open ever so slightly as she grins.

Jamie’s eyes harden, but the glasses go up in front of them with a quick motion before Sasha can fully tell if she’d gotten to him.

“Play nice,” he hisses sharply, and Sasha frowns because she’d thought she was being _very_ nice considering.

(This was not the same Jamie Wrenly.)

“Hm,” she says, sighing it, drawing it out. Just to _see._

Jamie’s chin goes up, and there’s the shadow of movement behind the glasses and a sharp fidget of fingers along the brim of his hat.

“I don’t have time for games, Sasha.”

(Jamie always had time for games.)

“What happened last summer?” Sasha snaps back, just as sharply. No games.

“Last summer?” Jamie repeats, and he leans as well, but casually, on his heels. Hands still fidgeting. “My parents got divorced. _This_ summer…I got into some good shit.”

(That’s more Jamie.)

Sasha relaxes, just a bit, letting the edges of her smile down.

“So you’re high?”

“Oh always,” Jamie chirps back, and the glasses slide back down, just a tad. “Everything’s a bit… _more_ …nowadays. Helps to have something to dull it back down.”

“Mmm, and the hat’s just an added trick, then.”

It is, apparently, the wrong thing to say.

Jamie’s eyes grow dark again, grow _cold_ , and there is the edge of _something_ in his voice as he tips his head forward.

“The _hat_ , is a part of me now, Sasha. You’re just going to have to get used to it.”

* * *

_**Now** _

There’s a hand on her elbow, and Sasha plasters the smile on her face before she turns, this time.

“You went with navy this time? Seriously?”

Jamie blinks, and cocks a hand to look down at his nails.

“It’s midnight blue,” he says slowly, eyes flickering warily at her over his glasses.

Sasha scoffs an amused breath and fixes the look right back. “It’s navy, and it’s clashing with the velvet.”

Jamie’s jaw twitches, and Sasha _grins_.

(Good. So she can still get him.)

“I came to tell you to play nice with the new kid,” Jamie says evenly, and Sasha twirls her hair around her fingers and glances sideways into the hall.

“I always play nice,” she purrs, and ignores the sharp snap in Jamie’s expression. “You just never like to join in.”

“I don’t like the games you play,” Jamie bites out lowly. “And you cheat.”

“Ha!”

She can’t help the sharp noise that slips past her lips, and Jamie shifts back, ever so slightly.

“Oh _Jamie_ ,” she sighs, and end revels in the downward turn of Jamie’s lips. “I don’t cheat. I’m just playing for keeps.”

“Well,” Jamie says thickly. “Keep the new kid out of it.”

And then he straightens, and brushes past her, fingertips running over the edges of his nails as he goes. Sasha tilts her head and lets him get a few steps away.

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll have to get involved.”

The lunch bell rings.

(Alright then, Jamie.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I get home, you're so dead by Mayday Parade
> 
> You should see me in a crown by Billie Eilish
> 
> Fluorescent Adolescent by Arctic Monkeys


	4. I can't dress, they're gonna crucify me (oh, but you with all your vibrant youth)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I did not have a good coming out experience with my parents. Jamie does.*
> 
> *Hints at societal homophobia/gender expectations. Hints at dysphoria. Nothing explicit.*

_**Then** _

**Jamie**

Sometimes Jamie feels too big for his body.

_Sometimes Jamie_ hates _his body._

It’s odd, how this vessel that is built solely for the transportation of souls can mean so much to people. How what fabrics one decides to drape it in can have such a visceral effect on the human consciousness.

“I want you to call me Jamie.”

_How something as simple as a name can be so alienating for a human and their progeny._

“What’s that?”

She’s distracted, and it’s terrible.

“I would…like you to call me Jamie.”

She’s paying attention now and it’s worse.

“Why?”

_How it’s impossible to explain that it’s not a rejection, that it’s an offering. That it’s not being ungrateful for the life given but a request to go about that life a little differently._

“I don’t understand…you don’t feel like a boy? I’m pretty sure I’d know if I’d had a daughter.”

_She’s trying, and it’s almost admirable. She’s trying to hide, and it hurts_.

“So what do you mean ‘not all the time?’ Is there something else you’re going to be then?”

“Still just me,” Jamie somehow manages, but he’s shaking and each second of standing in the living room like this is killing something inside. “Still just your child.”

_It’s baffling how quick some parents are to reject their own blood. As if they believe that their child is somehow meant to be exactly like them, and not an entirely new life on their own. That there is an obligation that the child has to conform to from the moment they are born._

“Ok, let me see if I understand this then….”

_It’s extraordinary..._

“You’re…non-binary?”

“Yeah.”

“And that means you don’t necessarily feel either masculine or feminine? You’re…in between?”

_…the lengths to which some parents…_

“Kind of. Basically.”

“And you want me to call you Jamie?”

“Please?”

_…will go for their children._

“I don’t know…I don’t know. But I can certainly try, if you’ll give me some time.”

“Yeah. Yeah, ok.”

_She's trying, and that's all that matters._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hunger by Florence and the Machine
> 
> Which Witch by Florence and the Machine
> 
> Mothers by Daughter


	5. My heart is like a haunted house, there's things in there that scream and shout (I'm not free yet)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone is staying safe and staying sane in these *interesting* and difficult times. 
> 
> Let's not forget to love each other. We'll get through it.

**Sasha**

Sasha, contrary to popular belief, hates parties.

(The _something_ that now resides in the hollow spaces of her chest and gut _loves_ parties. So many willing bodies. And those that weren’t, well…only needed a little encouragement.)

Sasha remembers being shy, as a kid. Remembers being quiet, and unobtrusive.

(She’d had to be, with her parents. Unobtrusive was the easiest way to avoid the inevitable pain that came with their position. Their empire.)

That had all changed when she’d hit thirteen, and her mother had sat her down and explained what it meant to be a woman, and more specifically, what it meant to be a _Murasaki_ , and the responsibility she now had to uphold and ensure the family name. Sasha, being the naïve thing she was then, had pouted, and said that it wasn’t _fair_ , and that it shouldn’t be on her to do any of that.

(Her father had then explained, in much harsher terms. Had not hesitated to make it clear that a woman had her place; that _Sasha_ had her place, had her _uses_. That if she refused to do her part, he could and would rescind any rights that he _allowed_ her to have.)

And so Sasha learned to put on a face, at parties. Learned to slip into her place and act the part. Charmed the people that needed to be charmed.

(And slept with those that didn’t.)

The worst part about the parties was watching her parents. Watching her father parade her mother around like a prize; calling Sasha over to spew her achievements (music awards and academic scholarships and ‘you know I was just talking to so and so’); watching her father pretend to be something he’s not.

(Pretend to be charming. Pretend to be _caring_.)

And always. _Always._ Sasha’s duty to her family. Securing her place at a man’s side.

Once, when she’d been about fourteen, she’d asked her mother what if it were at a woman’s side.

(That was the only time her father had ever hit her. It was also the last time Sasha held any hope of her parents’ affection.)

Cameron hadn’t been Sasha’s plan. Not at first, anyway. Her plan had been unrefined and undefined at first. Simply put: Get away from her parents’ influence; make a name for _herself_.

(It took her a while to figure out that, really, there was no such thing as not under her parents’ influence.)

Cameron had been…fun. Something for Sasha and Sasha alone. (And for the _something_ buried between her lungs.)

Sometimes Sasha entertained fantasies, with Cameron. Lying on the hood of his car looking at the infinite lights on a moonless night. Lying in his arms, after their first time together, him whispering that he’d never done anything like that before; had never done _that_ before.

(It had been a first for Sasha, too, in a way. The first time she’d let herself be _attached_. To feel.)

Cameron helped her feel. Feel alive, feel whole, feel connected. Feel…normal, if such a thing could be said for Sasha. But those fantasies remained; that perhaps this could be all she needed.

In the end, she’s not sure who ruined it.

(Cameron, the vicious thing inside her had insisted. Of course it was him, how could it have been anything else?)

Cameron wasn’t ambitious, wasn’t cunning enough for Sasha. He couldn’t keep up with her pace, wasn’t enough to keep her _above_. Sasha was so much _more_ than Cameron.

(Cameron was so much more, too. Not that she’d seen it at the time.)

* * *

By the end of That Night, Sasha finds herself with a few new tethers, and an ever increased hatred of parties.

*

She also found herself, just for a moment, entertaining those old fantasies once again.

*

That maybe these attachments could just be hers; and that maybe… _maybe_ she could be more, for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found by Amber Run
> 
> Haunted House by Florence+The Machine
> 
> Hunger by Florence+The Machine
> 
> My Trigger by Miike Snow
> 
> Genghis Khan by Miike Snow


	6. There's no seduction, only destruction (take me over and break me)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *This chapter contains teenagers having sex; drug use; mild gender dysphoria; and some unhealthy coping mechanisms/self-sabotage and negative thought processes.* 
> 
> *I tried to handle everything tastefully and respectfully, but just a heads up to be safe.*

_**Sometime, After** _

**Jamie**

They’re at Aff’s house, because Aff’s dad likes Jamie.

(Jamie is not the type of person that parents _like_ , given Mr. Solomon’s open distaste for them and the fact that Sasha’s parents don’t even know that Jamie exists.)

But somehow, Aff’s dad likes Jamie. Even with the whole courtroom thing. And so they’re at Aff’s house.

(More specifically, they’re in Aff’s bedroom.)

Even more specifically, Jamie is lounging in the big plush chair by Aff’s window, watching through half-lidded eyes as Sasha and Cameron make out on Aff’s bed. (And Cameron and Aff. And Aff and Sasha.) It’s a bit of a blur, but it’s an entertaining blur, at least from where Jamie is sitting.

At least until Sasha gives Jamie a _look_ over Cameron’s shoulder, eyes dark and full of that particular _something_ that never meant anything good; not on Sasha. Not in this context.

“Jamie,” Sasha purrs, rolling their name around in her mouth until it shivers down their spine. “Don’t you want to join us?”

Jamie adjusts their grimace as best they can, but they’re sure it’s still not quite the self-contained smirk they want it to be.

“I’m quite comfortable where I am, thank you darling,” Jamie simpers right back, but they make sure to dip their glasses down. Just enough to make proper eye contact. Just enough so Sasha _knows_ they mean it.

“Are you _sure_?” Sasha drags out with a hiss and a wink, and Jamie feels the way it shoots through every inch of their body and _pulls_.

“Very,” they grit out tightly, and Aff looks up from the opposite side of Sasha and frowns, brow furrowing in a dark wrinkle between their eyes. Great. Jamie shoots Sasha another look before tilting their glasses back up. Now the puppy was worried.

“You uh…you good, Jame?” Aff rasps, and Jamie sighs before settling a slightly less severe look on their face.

“Fine,” Jamie says, tilting their head at Aff in the way that Cam always said made them look dazed. “Just not in the mood to participate today. Honestly, this alone is more than enough for me right now.”

It’s not a lie, either. With the way Sasha has Cam going, neither one of them are going to last long. Aff nods quickly, noticing the same thing Jamie has, swallowing hard as Cam lets out a noise that is halfway between a groan and a plea.

“Sash,” he gasps. “Sasha _please_.”

Sasha’s lips twitch, and that _something_ in her eyes grows brighter. Grows darker, as Cam lets out another desperate noise that he barely muffles through his teeth. Sasha lets out a quiet laugh and tosses her head back, eyes flickering sharply.

“Alright then,” she murmurs, and that’s all it takes for Cam to come undone.

Sasha laughs the whole while, shoulders just barely shaking with mirth, and when Cam finally catches his breath in the aftermath he sits up and huffs, latching his arms around Aff’s shoulders.

“You didn’t have to be so mean,” he mumbles into Aff’s lips, but there’s no venom behind it.

There is definitely venom behind Jamie’s look, but if anything it only amuses Sasha further, as she takes the opportunity to lean forward against Aff’s back, lips brushing the skin of their neck as she whispers in their ear.

“Sasha,” Cam pouts, but Sasha merely grins, eyes locked on Jamie’s over Aff’s shoulders.

Aff’s eyes are blown impossibly wide, in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with the drugs that Jamie had offered (and Aff had denied) before the start of this whole thing. Which is honestly a shame, because Jamie wants _something_ to do with that look on Aff’s face, even if it’s not in anything as overtly physical. Cam’s hands find a spot between Aff’s legs just as Sasha’s lips press firmly to the side of Aff’s neck and that’s all it takes. Aff comes undone with a shaky gasp and a sharp stutter of hips, and it’s Cam who chuckles this time as he nudges Aff down onto the bed, though it’s a much gentler sound than Sasha’s. Sasha, who is still fixing Jamie with that _look_ , sharp and visceral, a sort of ‘you could have this too,’ written plainly in the easy quirk of her brow and the purse of her lips.

Jamie ignores it, as best as they can because _fuck_ that’s just not fair. Not today, not when even this threatens to be too much. Not with the way their brain is so adamant to _disconnect_ , so that even slightly high Jame can’t just sit in a room with their partners and not just be hyper-aware of things in all the worst ways.

Cam’s teeth scrape along the underside of Aff’s jaw and suddenly everything shatters.

Aff lets out a shout, a sharp and desperate “No!” At the same time, their hands come up to Cam’s chest and _pushes_ , and it’s only Cam’s (impressive, even now) athletics that keep him from tumbling off the bed. Instead he goes to his back, hands catching awkwardly at the sheets. Sasha sits up sharply from her perch on the edge of the bed, eyes flashing offense.

“Aff, what the hell?”

“Sasha shut up,” Jamie snaps, already on their feet and hovering…hovering…hovering. _Dammit!_

Sasha whirls on them, and for a second Jamie almost calls on that wisp of ability within them, almost draws it up and out. Almost _pulls_ at that ethereal tether, lips curling around the warning, the manifestation of it already visible in the shaking of their hands.

Sasha sees it, Jamie knows she does, because she falters for all of two seconds before clenching her jaw tight. ‘We’re not finished,’ the dark-bright of her eyes promises, but Jamie has already moved on because the two seconds of their stand-off is two seconds that Aff is rigid on the bed.

“Aff,” Jamie says pointedly, equal parts a plea of their name and equal parts to remind Sasha that there were more important things here now.

Instantly, Sasha’s expression falls, but her eyes are still sharp and full of that _something_ as she turns to Aff once more. Cam has taken a more direct approach, kneeling on the pillows facing Aff, coaxing them back from…wherever they’d been. Aff is sitting up, at least, though there’s still a tremble in their limbs.

(There’s a tremble, still, in Jamie’s, but that’s not going to be soothed anytime soon. Not in anything so soft or tender.)

“Hey,” Cam says gently, and Aff blinks, and returns.

“Hey,” Aff says back, voice a low croak in their chest. They grimace, lick their lips, try again. “Sorry.”

“What was that?” Sasha demands, and it’s only because Jamie can see that her eyes are clear, finally, that they don’t let go of the shiver of power that runs through them at her words.

“Um,” Aff says into their knees, and Cam turns his head to shoot Sasha a look of his own out of the corner of his eyes.

(It also, coincidentally, puts Jamie in Cam’s line of sight as well.) Cam takes one look at Jamie’s hands and frowns, and Jamie tries to wave it off and _fuck_ that’s so much worse.

“Aff,” Jamie says pointedly, again, to Cam this time, who look on the verge of saying _their_ name instead.

“Um,” Aff says again, not making eye contact as they lift their head again. “I’m fine, it’s just…ha. Um…no uh… _fuck_.”

“No what?” Cam pushes, gently, and Jamie feels a rush of affection at the fact that in spite of this, he still so quick to check boundaries.

Or perhaps that’s just the aftershock of the unreleased hex, still.

Jamie rather hopes it’s the latter.

(Jamie rather wishes it’s the former.)

Aff curls their shoulders, still not quite meeting Cam’s eyes. Their throat contracts with another tight swallow, their voice barely audible as they finally mumble out: “No teeth. Not…uh. Not there.”

(Jamie immediately begins recalling the ingredients for Wolfsbane in the back of their head.)

It takes Cam a second longer, but his eyes go wide as he sucks a slow breath, and Aff’s shoulders hitch that much higher towards their ears.

“Thanks for telling me,” Cam recovers quickly, and his hands are gentle as they brace against the sides of Aff’s face, tilting it upwards to meet his. “Is there anywhere else I should know about?”

Jamie can see the soft, but no less visceral rush of that same affection flicker through Aff’s eyes. And Jamie curses their body once again, curses their _fucking useless brain_ that they aren’t the one that Aff is looking at like that, not the one cupping gentle hands to Aff’s face and gentle words to their ears.

“Um,” Aff says again, quiet but less shaken as they loop their fingers through Cam’s. “Yeah.”

Aff moves slowly, but steady, watching Cam’s face carefully now as they move their joined hands over a section of their collarbone; then lower, to a spot over their ribs.

(Left side, underside of jaw, Jamie notes immediately. Left side, directly under, along collarbone. Right side, ribs, just under the chest.)

Jamie’s _useless fucking disconnecting brain_ is all too happy to point out that, biologically speaking, mammals have breasts regardless of sex or gender.

(Jamie tells their brain to fuck off. It doesn’t.)

But as Jamie hadn’t yet had a chance to find out how Aff feels about biology in terms of boundaries, neutral terms will _continue to be a fucking thing, brain._

Jamie’s brain is also quick to note that the places Aff pointed out are all incredibly intimate spots, and can see Sasha coming to the same conclusion, her head tipping back and eyes narrowing sharply. Good. Between the two of them, something just might be done yet.

On the bed, Cam is murmuring some more to Aff, and Sasha relaxes from her ‘ruffled cat’ demeanor and settles once more as Aff calms even further. Jamie realizes that they’re still just standing there _uselessly_ , so they sit again, clenching their hands tightly as the last of the hex slowly begins to slide away.

“I uh…I think I’m alright,” Aff mutters sheepishly, and Cam nods some more, and Aff slides down the bed to lean against Sasha.

Sasha graces the top of Aff’s head with a kiss, then presses another to their lips when they tilt their head back with a happy hum.

“You ok?” Sasha murmurs quietly in the space between, fingers trailing gently along their body (expertly avoiding the places needing avoiding) before settling to trace lazy circles along their hip.

“Yeah, um-huh.” Aff nods, but shifts away minutely as Sasha’s fingers slip just a bit lower. “I just…I think I’m good, actually.”

Jamie watches Sasha’s eyes flash with _something_ as Aff cups their hand around Sasha’s, halting her progress. Then it shifts, and it’s just Sasha, worry showing in the tilt of her head and the lift of her brow. Aff grins and kisses the corner of her mouth gently, before pulling away, shifting to tuck into the corner of the bed as Cam takes the opportunity to pin Sasha to the mattress.

Jamie scoffs gently because of _course_ Sasha’s not done, but keeps an eye out for Aff as the tingling at the back of their neck starts to settle in firmly. Aff’s eyes are focused on Sasha and Cam, much to Jamie’s relief (annoyance?), but after a moment, Aff shifts a bit more pointedly, a small noise like a whine welling up in their throat.

“Jamie,” Aff whimpers suddenly, as Sasha hitches a sharp sigh beneath Cam, nails pressing into his spine. “Jamie, can I kiss you? Please?”

Jamie jerks sharply and regrets it, as the sudden movement becomes his brain’s ok-signal to start shouting at him all the ways in which everything is suddenly _wrong._

(The way Sasha breaks apart from Cam, just enough to glare, eyes full of that dark _something_ that grates against every fiber of Jamie’s being, certainly doesn’t help.)

(Nor does the realization that his brain had gone and disconnected without him realizing, and now he’s just stuck in the shift and no…no…no… _no._ )

Aff is still looking at him, a bit closer now, and there is no way Jamie is going to draw attention to any of that shit. So he nods, because it’s _Aff_ , and Sasha makes a low noise in her throat on the bed as Aff lets out a soft cheer of delight, grinning and leaping up from the bed. And then Jamie notes -because he’s still processing the spaces of his body and his brain and nothing wants to cooperate- Aff’s current state of undress. And that’s just _too much_ right now, and he wants nothing more than to give in to the pressing urge of his brain to _disconnect_.

“Ah…mm,” Jamie says breathlessly, and Aff pauses, feet halfway to the floor.

On the bed to his right, Sasha makes a similar noise, lower and strained with pleasure and it’s _too much too much too much_ , and Jamie shuts his eyes tight behind the red tint of his glasses.

“Maybe…maybe in a more…proper state of dress? Please?”

Jamie hates the words as soon as they’ve come out of his mouth, and he cringes slightly, waiting for the aftermath, for the _pull_ , for the drop.

“Haha, yeah. That’s fair,” Aff chuckles, and Jamie exhales a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, squinting his eyes open behind the glasses to see Aff scrambling for fresh clothes.

It takes less than a minute, but relief and fondness surge through Jamie in overpowering turns, until by the time Aff crash lands on the arm of the chair it’s nearly all that exists. Aff chuckles again, giddy and reckless in that way that only _Aff_ is, and Jamie works to regain a semblance of control once again, to reorient and shake back into the moment. It takes too long, for that, but Aff helps, tangling hands through Jamie’s hair and gently scratching at the base of their skull until all that exists is just the two of them.

“Ha,” Jamie says, in a sharp exhale and an even sharper twitch of lips. “Ok.”

“Ok?” Aff repeats gently, eyes dark and searching through the red haze.

And Jamie nods because, yeah, yeah it’s ok, they’re ok, and Aff wiggles happily before leaning in and pressing their lips to Jamie’s. There’s a brief spike of panic, where Jamie’s brain tries to jerk them away from a perceived threat, before it settles into a dull sort of weightlessness in the back of their mind.

Kissing Aff is different. Not like Cam, a sort of desperate, recklessness about him; as if he’s trying to pour his entire being into it and escape from the grip on his soul. And not like Sasha; who kisses to _own_ , to dominate and control. Aff kisses like it’s just that; for the sheer joy and overwhelming _feeling_ that comes from kissing a person you’re attached to.

“How come Aff gets to kiss you?” Sasha snaps from the bed, eyes sharp and dark with jealousy.

“Because Aff’s a better kisser than you.” And it’s petty and childish, but Jamie feels a bit petty and childish right now. And anyway they deserve it, after that.

And Aff grins, eyes bright and ecstatic, and kisses them again. 

For a fleeting second Jamie can almost pretend that’s all that exists.

“I just don’t get it,” Sasha snaps, sitting up fully, shoving Cameron off of her in the process. “You refuse to join us when we’re having sex, but then you just go right on ahead and kiss Aff. What’s your deal, Jamie?”

Alright. Straight to the point, then.

Jamie flinches, ever so slightly, and hates that they can’t hide it.

(Any thoughts, brain?)

( _Not high enough_.)

(Agreed.)

“I’ve kissed other people besides Aff,” Jamie hedges, attempting to appear glib, crossing their legs and pointedly ignoring the way their hands start to shake. “I’ve kissed Cam. I’ve kissed _you_.”

( _Regrettably_.)

“Yeah,” Sasha counters, eyes narrowing and legs swinging over the side of the bed so she can properly glare down at Jamie. “Once.”

“Ah, I see,” Jamie drawls, glasses tilting jerkily down so they can glare right back. “This is because I won’t fuck you.”

Sasha hisses a sharp breath between her teeth, and the sound alone threatens to drag Jamie down with it. Aff shifts nervously on the arm of the chair, and Cam places a hand on Sasha’s still-bare shoulder.

“Guys,” Aff drags out in a low tone, and they say it in such a way that Jamie knows they’d really meant _Jamie_.

“Sash, leave it,” Cam warns, but his eyes are on Jamie, too, and Jamie fleetingly feels offense before realizing that their hands are still visibly shaking.

( _Still not high enough.)_

“No, I’m not just gonna ‘leave it’ this time, Cameron,” Sasha snaps, shifting out of his grasp.

This time?

“It was fine, back in the beginning of all this and you said to give him _time_ ,” Sasha continues, voice snapping sharp and vicious as her eyes dart back to Jamie. “Well? It’s been a good bit of time, don’t you think?”

“ _Sasha._ ”

Jamie blinks, confused. Good bit of time? They were barely into the summer…they’d only just _started_ this thing…whatever the hell they all were...at the end of last semester. Enough time? That Night had just happened, hadn’t it?

( _Not high enough_.)

(Not now.)

( _Not. High. Enough.)_

(Not now!)

And then Jamie realizes what she means.

Their glasses are off completely and they aren’t entirely sure how that had happened, but they’re able to look Sasha full in the face when they sit straight up and say it.

“This is because I fucked _Cam_ , isn’t it?”

The look on Sasha’s face is…undefinable. Which is a shame, because Jamie would really like to know what it means. What she’s feeling, now that they’d finally gotten to her.

“ _Guys_ ,” Aff says again, at the same moment Sasha chokes out:

“What?”

They’re standing. Huh. How’d that happen?

Sasha is shaking, ever so slightly, and for some reason it doesn’t give Jamie as much satisfaction as they thought it would.

( _It’s cuz you’re not high enough_.)

“Last year?” Jamie muses aloud, continuing in spite of themselves. In spite of Sasha. “It was right around spring break. You know, when you were deciding that nothing was _good enough_ for you.”

The noise Sasha makes is sharp and fractured, something like an inhale except it gets stuck somewhere. The part of Jamie that decides it’s being cruel now thinks that it’s certainly not in her chest; it’s being occupied by a bottomless void.

“Jamie. _Stop_ ,” Cam says, and Jamie blinks, and realizes that something must have come out because Sasha just looks…oh. Huh. Ok.

(Ok.)

“Right,” Jamie says, and when they run their tongue over the edge of their lips it tastes sour. “I’ll just go.”

And they’re fumbling for the door, ignoring the heat of Aff as they follow- ‘Jamie, you can’t scooter home like that, I’ll drive you just---’

(Wait? Wait for what? They’ve already damaged enough.)

Somehow, Jamie gets home in one piece.

(If you don’t count the stop to throw up, or the one to scream, or the one to cry.)

It’s only as they’re crashing into their bed for the night that they realize their glasses are still back at Aff’s. 

(And all Jamie can think is that they’re still not high enough for this.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love is a bitch by Two Feet
> 
> Feel like I'm drowning by Two Feet
> 
> Acid Rain by Lorn
> 
> Closer by Nuages
> 
> I found by Amber Run
> 
> Melancholy Hill by Gorillaz
> 
> It's ok, You're ok by Bonjr


	7. Hold your breath and count to ten (put your hand in mine, keep me from harm)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Please be warned, this chapter deals with the aftermath of the death of a minor. It also contains violence, child abuse, referenced drug use, implied/referenced homophobia, and hints at police brutality.*
> 
> *I am in no way condoning any of the actions taken place in this chapter or this story, and the events of this story are in no way a statement or a stance on any one position.* 
> 
> Harmful or disrespectful comments *will* be deleted. 
> 
> Be safe, be kind, and don't forget to love each other.

**Cameron**

In the aftermath of That Night, Cam can’t quite say what had terrified him more.

(It’s 3 am and his dad is going to kill him.)

Aff mutters something similar, in the truck, as Cam doubles over in the back, hands rubbing through his hair.

(Cam seriously doubts it; the way Aff had said it- exasperated and guilty, their lateness tied to worry and concern. _Cam’s_ lateness, on the other hand…)

His dad is going to kill him.

Chasing after a bunch of evil cultists certainly hadn’t helped things.

(Seeing Aff nearly lose control of themselves hadn’t helped either.)

(And that’s not even taking consideration of the fact that the backlash of all of that left them hardly more than a shivering wreck. It was almost par for the course, at the rate they were all going.)

When they step out of the warehouse, exhausted and entirely drained, Cam wants nothing more than to go home. Get a hot shower and crawl into bed and forget it all happened.

(It’s almost 6 in the morning and Cam does _not_ want to go home.)

Instead, he goes to school.

(After climbing in through the window and crashing on his bed for all of two hours of sleep.)

He has the sense of mind to _not_ wear the same clothes.

(He changes his t-shirt, because that’s all he thinks he’s able to manage with his parents awake and moving about in the morning.)

School is almost as devastating as That Night had been. Cam can honestly say that he admires Jamie’s control.

(Because if it had been Cam, he doesn’t think he would have let the hex go.)

It’s after school that the fear from That Night kicks in again. Because now he’s going to _have_ to go home; if only so his mom doesn’t think he’d gotten killed too.

(So his dad knows he still gets the chance to.)

Sasha comes with him, and he doesn’t have the words to express how grateful he is that she’d asked.

(The way his voice shakes over his ‘please’ says enough, he thinks.)

There’s a police car in his driveway, because of course there is.

The officer is in the middle of some kind of tirade when they enter. Something about the _legal ramifications_ and _obstructing justice_ and _the implication of absence_.

(His dad had never been more furious, Cam is positive.)

The officer leaves, and there’s a lurch of panic where Cam thinks Sasha might have gone, too. His dad takes one step forward.

“Cameron.”

Cam flinches, the panic overriding everything because oh fuck he’s mad oh shit he’s so pissed fuck he’s gonna….

Sasha squeezes his hand tight and he can breathe, but only just. The apologies spill out pitiful to even his own ears, never mind what his dad must make of them.

(He hasn’t made another move but Cam’s somehow got his hand up anyway, as if that will do anything to block the blows when they inevitably come.)

“Do you have _any_ idea…?”

He has plenty of ideas, that’s the problem. So many ideas and so many scenarios but _that_ hadn’t been one of them.

Sasha tries to help, and Cam loves her for it, even if she doesn’t truly know what she’s helping for. What she’s helping _avoid_.

The way his dad’s eyes cut to her and then back to Cam, the lift of his brow and the curl of his lip as if to say, ‘You really expect me to believe that, Cam?’

Cam doesn’t need him to believe it. Not really. Just not act on the fury in his eyes; the anger that has him curling his hands into fists and that makes Cam just want to curl up small and sink into the floor.

(Makes him wish, if however fleetingly, that there was room in that quarry for one more body.)

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and he hates how it’s a _whisper_ , hates how it shakes out of him and does absolutely nothing to ease that anger in his dad’s eyes.

Somehow, they’re able to go upstairs.

(Cam tries not to make his request for Sasha to join sound like he’s begging.)

(He fails.)

But they’re upstairs, and there’s no familiar sound of footsteps following, no pressure of his dad behind him, no hands shoving him back against the wall, no fists beating into him until he can’t escape.

(There’s still the police officer, though, outside.)

(Which is why Sasha slipped out the window first, while Cam crept into his dad’s room to get the keys from the bedside table.)

The creak on the stairs is all the warning he gets.

“ _Cam_.”

Shit.

Cam straightens so sharply it’s almost comical; like those old cartoons where the main character is sneaking in the dark, only to freeze dramatically when a light is shone over them.

There’s nothing comical about the set of his dad’s jaw. The dark flash in his eyes and the quick, rapid march.

“Dad,” Cam tries weakly, hands already coming up. “Dad, please.”

(At least the keys were already in his back pocket.)

It’s quick, at least. And he doesn’t hit Cam in the face, so. Small victories?

“You ok?” Sasha murmurs, when he climbs into the car.

“Yeah,” he says thickly, and forces himself to ignore the throbbing pain in his side from a particularly well placed hit. Forces himself to meet Sasha’s eyes, to snake his hand gently up her thigh and pretend that everything’s alright.

(She drifts her fingers up his arm and through his hair at the base of his skull, head tilted back in a laugh is purely _Sasha_ , and he can almost believe himself.)

Then they make it to the church.

* * *

(Getting shot at was definitely on Cam’s list of ‘not fun’ things.)

Seeing Aff _fully_ lose control of themselves is a pretty close third and had made things suck that much more.

(So had watching Sasha fade away until all that was left was a vicious, twisted imitation.)

But Jamie is the worst, Cam thinks.

Because Jamie at their darkest is Jamie with no inhibitions, and there’s a small part of Cam that thinks he wants to see _that_ more. Until the aftermath, when the shock sets in and the awareness comes back, and Cam ends up being the only one stable enough to catch Jamie when they fall, while Aff tears desperately at their cloak and wraps it around their abdomen. While Jamie fights them because _it hurts_ , because it’s a _fucking bullet_ because they’d all been _fucking shot at_.

And Cam thinks that next time, maybe they could just do this without the brutality involved.

The police, for some fucked up reason, don’t seem to agree. They try to get Jamie’s hands behind their back for cuffs, and the only reason Aff doesn’t tear the officer’s head off when Jamie cries out in pain is because Cam gets there first. He manages a solid punch to the officer’s jaw before his body lights up with fire and he’s on the ground. At first he thinks he’s been shot, but then he realizes, as his limbs jerk when he tries to get up again, that they must have hit him with a taser.

“What the fuck!?” Aff is screaming. Jamie is whimpering and trying to pretend that they’re not, and Sasha looks almost as lethal as Suzy had. “The hell is wrong with you assholes? Can’t you see they’ve been fucking _shot?_ ”

That seems to do something, at least. Rather, the officer stops trying to cuff Jamie and wrestles Aff into cuffs, instead. Then they come for Cam, and the only reason they don’t immediately react violently to Sasha is because she starts talking.

Cam doesn’t hear everything, but he does hear the wail of the ambulance when it comes.

Jamie fights the EMTs, too, but only just. When all is said and done, all four of them still end up in a cell in the police station.

(The cell is the last bit of bullshit in an awful, long line of bullshit.)

Aff panics badly during the beginning of it, and ends up nearly hitting another officer.

(Cam doesn’t see what follows, but Sasha does. Watching her facial expressions through it makes Cam want to throw up.)

He does throw up, and gets several dirty looks and a gross, loose fitting set of clothes that itch and look like an animal was skinned for it.

Sasha tries to make a quip about their new fashion trend, but she’s shaking too much for it to do anything but fall flat.

(The police don’t let them stay grouped together.)

Sasha and Aff share a holding cell just across from the one that Jamie and Cam find themselves in.

Cam wants to find some way of critiquing the officers’ inset prejudices, but decides against it.

(At least the EMTs had splinted Sasha’s leg.)

“They took my binder,” Aff whispers brokenly into Sasha’s shoulder.

Jamie stiffens sharply against Cam’s back, and Sasha pulls Aff closer as they start to sob.

“I’m sorry,” Sasha whispers into Aff’s hair, meeting Cam’s own helpless look.

And Cam knows it’s not so much _I’m sorry_ as it is _I’m sorry I can’t possibly understand what you’re going through._

“How did this happen?” Cam asks the open air.

“Don’t you start that shit,” Jamie snaps behind him.

“I should have looked for her sooner,” Aff mumbles through their dwindling cries. “I should have _noticed_ she was gone…we were all fucking _high_ , I should have been _watching her_ ….”

“Don’t you fucking _start_ that shit!” Jamie lurches around Cam to snarl through the bars. “Cuz if you start that shit, I’m gonna have to _finish_ it, and--”

Jamie’s tirade is cut short by the sound of the main door opening. There’s a sharp jangle of keys and an even sharper voice that barks out:

“Hey! Cut that shit out.”

It’s the officer that had hit Aff, if the look on Sasha’ face and the way Aff bares their teeth at him is any indicator. The officer casts a distasteful look in their direction before noting the closeness with which they’re all sitting.

“And no touching,” he spits with a sneer.

Jamie very slowly and very deliberately loops their fingers through Cam’s and squeezes his hand tightly, the other hand going up to bluntly give the cop the finger. The cop starts forward immediately, and it’s only because of the tight grip Jamie still has on his hand that Cam can tell that they’re shaking.

“You little--” the cop starts, at the same time Aff flies to their feet shouting “If you touch them, I’ll kill you!”

The main door bangs open again before Cam can decide if he’s really going to fight yet another police officer (the answer would have been yes, most definitely) and another cop steps in.

“Hey, come on. Get them out of there.”

The first cop stops, eyeing Jamie out of the corner of his eyes as he turns to his colleague.

“You serious?”

“High profile case,” the woman says, moving in and unlocking the bars containing Aff and Sasha. “Never mind that it’s fuck o’clock…boss wants them all in for questioning.”

Aff almost immediately starts forward as the other cop reaches their cell, but the female officer steps into their way immediately.

“Not gonna happen, kid,” she says, and her tone brokers no arguments. “Try that shit again and you’ll be getting _real_ comfortable with that cell. Behave, and maybe we’ll all get to go home tonight.”

(It’s a lie. Somehow, Cam knows this. They have no intention of letting any of them go home.)

Aff _growls_ , and it’s a low sound deep in their chest. Their eyes are still on the other cop, who is unlocking Cam and Jamie’s cell, reaching for Jamie with intent. Cam doesn’t want to move forward, but he finds he has no choice, and he shuffles past the man into the narrow corridor between. He’s reaching back for Jamie as he does, and Jamie makes a pained noise before grabbing Cam’s hand once more.

(If looks could kill, the cop would have found himself vivisected three ways by sunrise.)

Instead, the cop remains standing, and Cam finds himself tugged towards a new room.

* * *

He’s seen this shit in T.V. shows and movies, but it still does nothing to prepare him for actually being interrogated.

(Fuck Hollywood, he thinks, shivering and cuffed to the solid metal table.)

He doesn’t remember what he says, just that it’s some variation of bullshit and truth. The cops exchange meaningful glances and come at him from all kinds of angles, but the only thing Cam can think is that somewhere in this station, his friends are going through this too.

(He wonders if Mrs. Wrenly knows that Jamie is here. He thinks about it for a second and decides he doesn’t want to know.)

He distracts himself with thoughts of Aff, and wondering if they’re strong enough to physically bend metal.

(He learns later that he hadn’t been far off in his imaginations. They’d broken the handcuffs, at least.)

The cops don’t seem to care about the fact that he’s a kid, or a Solomon, or about his general well-being.

Instead they care that he’s a kid who maybe killed another kid, and where he’s been, and his relationship with the others.

(And Cam thinks, in spite of it all, that hey. At least the cops could tell that there _was_ a relationship.)

If they get out of this, Cam will make sure to never let any of them out of his sight again.

*

It’s two more days before they’re finally released. A concrete confession with sufficient evidence to back it up had come in absolving them of all the charges.

(But not of the resisting arrest, or of the drug use, or of the tampering with evidence.)

For all of that, they get misdemeanors and community service and court mandated anger management classes.

(That’s not counting the two days of being in a cell, and the police, and the misgendering.)

Cam had wondered, furious and just a little bitter and unsure why, how it was that _Aff_ was fine, but _Jamie_ was the one that people had a problem with for some reason.

(Jamie had made a poor attempt at a joke and said it was because at least Aff was set with just the one neutral. Jamie switched pronouns, which meant he clearly couldn’t make up his mind and needed to be told one way or the other, usually violently.)

They’d all taken issue with that, but as Jamie bore a still healing gunshot wound and several more bruises than the rest of them, Jamie considered it point made.

As it is, they all make it out into the lobby of the police station, and there’s a woman in a patterned button down and a nice blazer pacing by the doors. Jamie makes a pained noise behind him, and Cam starts to squeeze their hand reassuringly before finding that Jamie had already wriggled out of the grip.

The woman sees them all instantly, but her eyes seem to look right through them as she huffs a ragged sigh.

“Jamie,” she gasps, and Jamie echoes the ragged noise she’d made as the female officer starts to remove their handcuffs.

“Mom,” Jamie begins, but is lost immediately as the woman grabs them, wrenching them into a hug.

“Jamie, what on _earth_?” she whispers, and Jamie grimaces tightly.

“Ow, mom,” they deadpan, muffled through her arms. “Gunshot wound. Fragile.”

Jamie’s mom immediately pulls back but doesn’t relinquish her grip on Jamie’s shoulders. She leans down, just a bit, to search their face intently.

“We are going to _talk_ about this,” she says lowly. “Tomorrow. Right now, let’s just--”

The door to the police station bursts open and Aff cringes behind Sasha.

“Oh no,” they groan, as a man in khakis and a polo stumbles through the door.

“Aff?!” he gasps out, after tripping over the rubber mat.

“Hey, dad,” Aff mumbles, still wincing as they step forward. For a second, Cam tenses, but Mr. Flowers just wrestles Aff into a similar death grip hug as Mrs. Wrenly had Jamie.

The words he spills are lost on Cam. He watches Sasha’s retrieve her phone and clothes from an officer and step into the small station bathroom to change. He gets his things back too, and does the same. When he steps back out, Sasha is finishing a conversation on the phone, looking pale, and Aff and Jamie had just retrieved their clothes, as well.

Jamie makes a sour face at the ruined remains of their cloak.

“Think dad will get me a new cloak?” they muse to Mrs. Wrenly, who mimics the face right back at them.

“I’m sure he will,” she replies, in the same dour tone Jamie had used.

Cam gets the sense that there is some hidden meaning there that he doesn’t understand.

“H-hey, Lynn,” Mr. Flowers says to a suddenly cold Mrs. Wrenly. “Nice to see you outside of…um. How’s--”

“Let’s not, shall we?” Mrs. Wrenly snaps tightly, and suddenly Cam can see where Jamie gets it from.

(He doesn’t quite see why the hostility, or the way Jamie and Aff were cringing in unison, looking like they wanted the floor to swallow them both whole.)

The door to the police station bangs open once again before he can fully figure it out, and he somehow knows even before he hears his name.

“Cameron. Let’s go. _Now_.”

“ _Fuck_.”

He somehow hisses it loud enough that everyone nearby can hear it. Mrs. Wrenly lifts a brow at him, pulled away from her tension filled stare down of Mr. Flowers, and both Aff and Sasha give him a sideways look.

The look Jamie gives him is somehow worse, because it’s not curious like Aff or concerned like Sasha. It’s _knowing_ , with an unspoken question behind it that Cam is all too tempted to answer with a yes. Instead he shakes his head, just a bit, and Jamie sighs and drops their gaze, cutting it sideways to Cam’s dad.

“I’m coming,” Cam mumbles, reluctantly stepping forward and half wishing that the asshole cop would cuff him again.

“Text me when you get home.” Sasha grabs his hand quickly as he passes, and Cam can barely bring himself to nod.

His dad is already out the door by the time he reaches it, but that doesn’t stop him from grabbing Cam’s shoulder as soon as he makes it through and shoving him. Cam had been expecting as much, so he doesn’t trip, at least.

(The follow up blow that his dad gives, however. That he hadn’t anticipated, somehow.)

There’s a gasp of sound, as Cam staggers and nearly goes to the ground, and it’s only the fact that his dad still has a grip on his shoulder that he doesn’t.

“Get in the car, Cam,” he snaps, and Cam pulls himself jerkily out of his dad’s grip and reaches for the door to the SUV.

He’s such a wreck after everything that it’s only once he’s _in_ the car that he realizes that the gasp hadn’t been his. Heart in his throat, Cam turns his head.

There, on the front steps of the police station, are Aff, Sasha, Jamie, and the parents. Sasha looks stricken, squeezing Aff’s hand tight beside her. Aff looks shaken and _furious_. Mr. Flowers looks uncertain and horrified, and there’s a certain stoniness in Mrs. Wrenly’s face despite how she looks almost as stricken as Sasha. And Jamie is still giving Cam that look through the window, jaw tight and eyes just visible above their lowered glasses.

( _Ask me_ , Jamie’s look says, and Cam swallows until his _yes_ is back in his gut and not on the tip of his tongue.)

His dad lectures on the way home, things like _stupid_ and _reckless_ and _don’t understand what I need to do to get through_ and _do you realize what you’ve done, what this means…the consequences for the company…for my career…for the future._

He’s furious, is all Cam can think through all of it. It’s the only thing his panicked brain can focus on, the only thing coursing through him as he all but topples out of his dad’s SUV and towards the house.

(His dad tears into him the moment he crosses the threshold, and all Cam can think is that at least with the police he hadn’t been afraid to fight back.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> St. Jude by Florence+The Machine
> 
> No time to die by Billlie Eilish
> 
> Skyfall by Adele


	8. Broken but fun (sometimes it makes me laugh)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie and Aff have fun shutting down homophobes. 
> 
> Jamie needs better coping mechanisms.

**Jamie**

Sometimes, they have fun with it. 

“Excuse me, uh…sir?”

And Jamie will smirk behind their glasses from their perch on some old crates, and Aff will turn from behind the counter and grin.

“Close enough, but sure. What can I get for you?”

“Oh! Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t…uh. Can I just get….?”

And then there’s:

“Pardon me, miss?”

Those are always the ones Jamie watches out for, the ones where Aff’s grin is feral and forced. The ones where their voice pitches lower with the force of a growl in their chest and their eyes spark sharp and hard. 

“Not really, no.” Or, “Maybe try that again?”

And then there are the other ones.

“Yeah, 'scuse me Miss, what’s it take to get some fucking service in this shit hole?”

The ones where Jamie gets to have fun.

Jamie’s glasses go down to the edge of their nose as Aff stiffens and turns, and they lock eyes over the counter in silent warning. 

“Not really a woman for you to ‘Miss,’ but I can help you if you’re ready.”

The man on the other side of the counter glowers, and there’s a look in his eyes that Jamie recognizes as pure stupidity. 

“What?” 

“Oh, uh, just that I don’t really identify as a woman, so the ‘Miss’ is unnecessary.”

Aff’s voice is polite but stiff, not quite making eye contact with the man as they extend a hand towards the items on the counter. “That’s gonna be--”

“Oh,” the idiot says, and his tone has changed, too. Gone thicker. Gone _disgusted_. “Oh you’re one of those fucking b--”

“Beautiful and incredibly patient individuals who is going to ring you up for your chips and beer without beating you into a bloody pulp for your differences.”

Aff shoots a look between exasperated and grateful at Jamie, as the asshole whirls to see them perched on the crates in the corner. 

“What the hell are you?” He spits, lip curling higher, and Jamie is grateful that they’d had the presence of mind to slip their glasses back up so he couldn’t see that ethereal spark slip into them. 

“Oh just another one of _those_ fucking people,” Jamie quips lightly, waving a dismissive hand that only shakes a little bit with the force of their rising power. “Don’t mind me. Please, continue.”

“Fucking fa--”

“Fantastically better dressed individual than you?” Jamie finishes neatly, tilting their glasses down just enough that the jackass can see their unamused expression. “Why yes, yes I am. Thank you for noticing, so polite.”

The man takes one step forward, and Jamie stands, hand lifting sharply in a warding gesture.

“I wouldn’t do that,” they drawl out slowly, and their voice is almost as dark as Aff’s. 

The man sneers, and he shifts forward another step, hands curling intently at his sides.

“Or you’ll what? Shaking like the fucking priss you are! Can’t even look at me properly without that fucking _costume_ on...”

And his hand flies out, and Jamie hears the rush of it and the sharp, twisted crack that follows as if from far away. As the glasses are ripped from their face with enough force to make them flinch, hard enough that the hat is knocked away with equal, wrenching brutality. 

“You’re disgusting, you know that?” The man spits, and Jamie is grateful for the way their brain disconnects at that moment alone so that they don’t feel it when he actually spits. At Jamie. On Jamie, the odd wet of it trailing in a gross mockery of tears.

“You know it’s people like you that—that--”

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

Jamie’s voice is a snarl, their hand a tight, shaking fist in front of them. 

The man splutters, losing color and then regaining it in splotches around his throat and eyes. 

“Something about people like me ruining the sanctity of a nation? That about it?” 

The man makes a particularly satisfying gurgle, and Jamie’s lips curl haltingly upwards. 

“Well I mean, it takes one to know one, right?”

“Jamie.”

Aff’s voice, in ironic contrast, is hardly more than a whisper as they slide over the counter. Palms up, eyes locking blatantly with Jamie’s own. It pangs at them deep inside because the only reason that direct contact was even happening was because of this useless waste of flesh that dared to call itself a person. 

“Jamie.”

Aff says again, and it is lower now, a proper rumble in their throat. 

(It is also blue. That roiling, midnight blue that Jamie loves to put on their nails.) 

Jamie releases their hand, and the man doubles over in silent agony, his returning breath a sucking void in his lungs. 

“Why don’t you try that again?” Jamie hisses, as the man straightens and staggers backwards shakily. “A bit nicer this time?”

The broken sob that twitches past the man’s lips is music to Jamie’s ears, well worth the telltale twinge of the hex taking hold without the proper tie needed. 

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry--. C-c-can I jus’ get a pack of Mar-Marlboro’s? Please?”

The man shakes at the counter as Aff rings him up properly this time, but doesn’t say anything else. 

(Jamie is shaking, too, as the full force of the backlash hits them. As their anger wears off and it just _hurts_.) 

They don’t even realize that the man is gone until Aff is directly in front of them, eyes sharp and intense.

“What did you _do_? Jamie, what was that? What did you...Jamie?" 

Their hands are in their hair and the added contact makes it that much worse, but they can see why Cam likes it so much. It’s grounding, in a way that the pain tries so hard to combat.

“I made him afraid,” Jamie manages, fixing on the scattering of reflective red at his feet. 

(Oh. Great. We’re back to that, then. Thanks brain.) 

“Properly, you know? Whenever he thinks so much as a single homophobic thought he’ll remember this and feel that same fear. And if he tries to act on it....”

Jamie’s lips twitch in an utterly unconvincing smile, as Aff pulls a napkin from the holder on the counter and runs it across his face. Aff’s other hand presses Jamie’s hat back on his head and suddenly it’s just _too much_. Jamie doesn’t hear the noise he makes, and so it’s impossible to tell how out of control of himself he really is; if it had been a whimper or a scream. 

(He’s screaming. He most definitely is screaming.) 

Aff's eyes are wide but their expression is taught, concern falling behind determination as they brace the sides of Jamie’s face with their hands. Jamie flinches again, because it _hurts_ , and Aff’s eyes reflect the pain of Jamie’s subconscious rejection, and that hurts too, and Jamie can’t get his brain to work to tell Aff that it’s not them and to please don’t please don’t please don’t let go. 

“Breathe, Jamie,” Aff commands gently, shifting closer despite the ragged way Jamie is shaking. “I’m right here, and that piece of shit is gone, and you’re ok. I’m ok.”

It helps. 

(It doesn’t help.)

Not the hex-pain, which spikes with each point of contact until Jamie is sure he’s going to shatter apart like...the red shards at his feet. 

“Aff,” Jamie pleads, trying to make them understand. “My glasses.”

Aff’s eyes darken for a second before softening, a gentle finger brushing beneath one of his eyes before returning to his cheeks. 

“I know, Jame. I know, and I’m sorry and I’d go out and kill him for it but then I wouldn’t get to keep looking at your beautiful eyes.”

It reaches something, and Jamie scoffs weakly, flickering his gaze away enough to notice that somehow he’d ended up on the floor. 

“You and Cam,” he mumbles. “Fucking romantics.”

“Well,” Aff mutters back, giving a soft shrug that shifts their hands just enough that Jamie's brain disconnects from the fresh spike of pain that it brings.

He comes back uncertain of time, but Aff is still gently bracing the sides of his face, and he’s given up on trying to figure out he feels at the moment.

“That’s not,” he manages, “that’s not why I wear them.”

(Why he needs them.)

Because right now it is impossible to filter out just how _much_ everything is right now, the throbs and beats of each pulsing thing in the store. How the colors radiate off until he can see it all, like the hazy waves of heat above the street. The humming fridge waves out sickening lines of yellow and green; the rustling bags of chips just beyond Aff are blue. The bell above the door chimes out and Jamie flinches because the sound spikes pain at the same time it waves out orange. 

He squeezes his eyes tight and presses his hands over them to be sure, but he still feels Aff stand up sharply, and still hears the burble of conversation. 

“Uh, sorry, I was just going to flip the sign. Closing early. Family emergency.”

From behind the counter and with his eyes closed, Aff’s voice sounds purple, the deepest, roiling indigos and blues curling together in that familiar rasp. 

“Aw, you kidding? I mean sorry, I just wanted...sorry yeah, I’ll go.”

The customer’s voice is scarlet and pink by turns, hot and then soft, a blushing sort of whisper that is quickly replaced by pain as the hex makes itself known again. 

By the time Aff comes back from locking the door and flipping the sign and switching the outside store lights off (all things which Jamie’s brain can’t decide whether to interpret as pain or color, so it does both) Jamie is on the verge of losing himself completely. He thinks he does, for a little bit, because when he opens his eyes again everything is washed in a cool, familiar red, and he is curled into the corner of Aff’s bed in a pile that consists of blankets and pillows and Aff, and the only thing buzzing through his skin is the lingering hex and nothing else. 

“Hey,” Aff whispers, and Jamie feels a sharp welling of emotion in their throat that they quickly swallow. 

(Oh. Hey. Alright, make the decision without me brain. Again.) 

“I had a spare pair,” Aff continues, and Jamie begins to uncurl slowly from the blanket cocooning them. “Thought it might help....”

Aff makes a vague gesture, and Jamie adjusts the glasses on his face and sighs. 

(Oh. That’s not fair. That’s not _fair_.)

“What else will help? Jamie?”

"Are you _asking_?" Jamie hisses sardonically, a weak chuckle slipping past his lips. 

(There are limitations, when Jamie gets like this. Jamie can only do so much, like this.)

(Can’t do _anything_ , like this.) 

Aff’s brow furrows, then their face hardens, recognizing where Jamie can’t say.

(Or maybe they’re just pissed. That’s also incredibly valid.) 

“I’m asking, Jamie,” Aff growls, eyes intent. “Tell me what will help you.”

Relief floods through Jamie’s chest at the same time that ethereal tether _tugs_ at Aff’s request. 

“Anything else,” Jamie gasps out, honest and desperate in the way he hates to be. “Anything else than this, I just need...anything.”

Aff’s eyes harden even as their face falls, and their hands with it from the sides of his face. 

“Jamie,” Aff says slowly, and their voice is just bordering a snarl. “I am _not_ giving you drugs right now.”

That’s not what he’d meant, but it would work. (It’s worked before. But.) 

“That’s not what I meant,” Jamie snaps, hissing through his teeth at the loss of contact and hating that he’d wanted it in the first place. “I mean it’s done it in the past but that’s not what I meant it’s not what I...”

Aff sucks a sharp breath and Jamie barely contains a flinch. 

“The hex. You...you _hexed_ him Jamie?”

“Well what else was I supposed to do?” Jamie snaps back, the loathing overriding the relief for a moment. 

“Maybe not fucking hex someone if you don’t have what you need to avoid- this.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not like you and Cam and Sasha....I can only ever...it was just something I could do.”

“But not at the cost of this, Jamie!” Aff’s eyes soften into damp pools of concern, and Jamie is grateful for the shield of his glasses to avoid the worst of it. “Not if this is what it does to you.”

“And what’s the alternative? Just do nothing? It’s not the first time I’ve been cornered by small-minded assholes and it sure as hell won’t be the last. But at least this time I can do something about it.”

“This time?”

Jamie realizes what he’s said too late. 

“Shit.”

“Jamie,” Aff presses, shifting forward on the bed. “ _This time_?”

“New York,” Jamie says tightly, clipped. “I was stupid. It was years ago. I was fine,” he insists at Aff’s tight look. 

(He hadn’t been.) 

(Not then, but after. When that ethereal something had latched onto him and showed him control. Showed him power. But that had still been after.)

“Jamie—”

“Anything else,” Jamie mumbles, dropping his eyes and fidgeting his fingers along the frames of the glasses. “Anything else, please, just anything else.”

“Drop the hex, Jamie,” Aff pleads, and it’s close but not enough. 

His hands still shake, and a too-sharp movement sends his glasses down his nose and spikes pain and color back through him for a second too long. 

“Look at me,” Aff commands, and a slight shiver runs down Jamie’s spine at the low rasp.

(And now is most certainly not the time, but Jamie’s brain still makes a note to explore that, anyway.) 

“Jamie,” Aff says again, hands coming back to brace the sides of his? their face. “Drop the hex, Jamie. I’m _telling_ you, to drop the hex.”

It’s enough. 

The ethereal tether slackens, and Jamie lets their eyes roll upwards as they focus to further separate the string from the recently placed hex. The pain snaps to a halt so sharply and so suddenly that Jamie can’t help the soft groan in their throat, but that’s fine. Everything was coming back together again and they’re fine. 

(Finally.) 

“Jamie.”

“I’m fine.” 

Glasses back up. Hair back in twists. Hat on. See. They’re fine. 

(Stop looking at me like that. Stop looking at me like that. Stop looking at me like that.) 

“Jamie,” Aff says, still that low command. 

(And suddenly Jamie doesn’t want to explore it anymore.) 

“I’m fine, Aff.” Say it sharp enough and it might be true. It would be true.

“You need to stop doing that, ok? It’s not worth it if it hurts you like this.”

“I’m fine, really. This is the least of my worries, and honestly is better than most of them because I know how this one works. I can control it.”

(You know sound--) 

(Jamie knows exactly how they sound, thank you not at all, brain.) 

“Jamie, promise me.” 

_What?_

“Promise me,” Aff says again, eyes sharp and hands gentle and voice so so soft. “I’m not Cam or Sasha, and I don’t always get it, the whole...tethers thing you guys have. But _promise me_ that you won’t do that again.” 

_Aff..._

“That’s not...” 

“Jamie, please.”

_But..._

“Are you asking?” 

_It’s all I have._

“Please.”

 _Fuck_. 

“I promise I’ll try. I promise.” 

Sometimes, Jamie has fun with it. Other times, not so much. But that’s alright. Because there’s Aff for those times. And Jamie can work with that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lovely by Twenty One Pilots
> 
> Ocean eyes by Billie Eilish
> 
> All those friendly people by Funeral Suits
> 
> We only attack ourselves by Funeral Suits 
> 
> Season 2 Episode 3 by Glass Animals


	9. You pull away, you don't know why (well now I'm a memento, there to remind you)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *This chapter features teenagers having sex! (non-graphic/not explicit) Also features implied/referenced child abuse and references to gender dysphoria.* 
> 
> *Again, nothing explicit, but just a heads up.*

**_Before_ **

**Cameron**

Cam has no idea how he got here, or how this started.

(He does know he doesn’t quite want it to stop.)

There’d been football practice after school, and he’d been dragging his feet to the locker room and subsequent shower. By the time he’d made it, later than the rest, coach had set him to running laps since he’d missed helping the team put equipment away. Which meant that now he was stuck, still uncomfortable and in his uniform, and far past the going home time than he’d intended.

Which meant that he was late. Which meant his dad would be home, which meant Cam wouldn’t be able to hide out in his room like he usually did when his dad got home from work.

So he’d been kicking his feet and entirely in how own head, oblivious to the outside world.

(Which is probably how Jamie had been able to sneak up on him.)

“Tell me this isn’t that concussion disease setting in already. You had such a promising career ahead,” Jamie had said. Cam had jumped, whipping around to find Jamie lounging on the metal bleachers, one hand shielding their face from view.

“What the fuck?” Cam had snapped, and Jamie had sighed and dropped their hand.

“Where’s your head at?” Jamie had asked, and Cam had had no response to the utter sincerity in the question except to stare at first.

“Listen, I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I should shower and get home.”

“You should,” Jamie had noted, and Cam could have sworn their eyes had flashed behind the glasses. “But you haven’t yet, so…where’s your head?”

* * *

Currently, Cam is in Jamie’s bedroom.

More specifically, Cam is against the wall in Jamie’s bedroom, Jamie on their toes to reach Cam’s mouth.

(The last thing on Cam’s mind is getting home.)

* * *

For some reason, Jamie’s piercing gaze had followed Cam into the locker room.

(But that could have also just been because _Jamie_ had followed Cam into the locker room.)

“What the fuck?” Cam had snapped, and Jamie had lifted a brow at him, glasses slipping down just a tad.

“Is that all you can think about?” Jamie had said, lips quirking, and Cam had flushed, ever so slightly.

“No,” he’d mumbled, pulling off his shoes and helmet. “Just…not sure what you’re doing out here. You don’t even take gym.”

Jamie’s jaw had hardened, and Cam had thought maybe he should have just put his shoe in his mouth.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that,” he had tried, and Jamie had hummed at him, but Cam still had felt like a jerk.

* * *

Right now, Cam feels Jamie’s shoulders shaking as he reaches down to grip them, trying to find a better angle. At first, Cam thinks he’s done something wrong, but then he realizes Jamie is _laughing_ at him.

“Oh, I didn’t think this through,” Jamie murmurs darkly, voice thick as they pull away, breathing hard as they bring a hand up to the edge of their glasses.

“Do you want to stop?” Cam asks.

“Not at _all_ ,” Jamie rasps, and then the glasses are gone and for the first time, Cam gets a proper look at Jamie’s eyes.

* * *

“You’ve been off,” Jamie had said, in lieu of any actual explanation. “I mean, more than your usual. I was curious.”

“So you followed me into the boys’ locker room, like a creep,” Cam had quipped.

Jamie had shrugged, but they were smirking beneath the hat.

Cam had huffed, put out, and then promptly realized a problem. Or, rather, another problem.

(The real reason he’d stalled joining the team in the locker room earlier.)

Jamie at least had turned away, rolling their eyes ever so slightly, but that wasn’t the _problem_.

(The problem, was several fist-sized bruises littering his torso and back.)

More specifically, the problem was that Cam couldn’t get his shoulder pads off without aggravating that. He was still not entirely sure how he’d gotten them on in the first place, but he chalked it up to his own stupidity the situation he was now in.

* * *

Cam’s on his back in Jamie’s bed, Jamie above him, and he’s still reeling, just a little.

“Wow,” he somehow gets out between being kissed again and Jamie’s hands creeping under his shirt. “Jamie…your eyes.”

“Shut up,” Jamie mumbles into his mouth, but Cam tries again anyway.

“They’re gorgeous,” he manages, and Jamie makes a noise low in their throat and pulls back, hands over their face.

“Shut _up,_ ” they groan through their fingers, but Cam can see that they’re blushing. “You’re so stupid.”

That may be, but still, Cam can’t help himself.

Jamie’s eyes are two different colors.

* * *

“Um,” Cam had said, tilting his head back to stare up at the crack in the ceiling. “Jamie?”

“Whatever you’re thinking, stop right now,” Jamie had snapped back, and Cam had bitten the inside of his cheek because he couldn’t believe he’d let himself get into this in the first place.

“I just need you to undo one strap for me, and not say anything,” Cam had rambled on, shutting his eyes to resist the urge to know what face Jamie was making at him.

“Famous last words,” Jamie had muttered, and then sighed dramatically.

Cam had kept his eyes shut at the sound of Jamie’s footsteps, gesturing vaguely to the strap in question.

“Really, Cameron, you couldn’t get this?” Jamie had huffed lowly, then tugged obligingly. Then had sucked a sharp breath.

“And not say anything,” Cam had said again, as Jamie’s hand had hovered over his back.

“Do you want me to _do_ anything?”

* * *

Cam had figured there was a reason for why Jamie always wore the tinted shades. He’d just always assumed it was because Jamie was notoriously almost always high.

(He’s somehow glad he’s wrong.)

“Cameron, I _swear_ ,” Jamie says, still red and muffled behind their hands.

“Ok, ok,” Cam whispers gently. “I won’t say anything.”

Jamie sighs, then drops their hands slowly, left eye squinting in a glare. Dutifully, Cam remains silent, and Jamie exhales another sigh before dropping their hands completely.

“Fuck,” Jamie hisses, and Cam tilts his head, offering an easy grin.

“I mean, if you still want.”

Jamie scoffs, but grins back, just a bit, and Cam considers it a success. Mostly because now he can see Jamie’s eyes again, and somehow that alone feels far more intimate and important than the sex.

Jamie’s left eye is a sharp, clear blue, while their right is a piercing grey.

(This close, Cam can see the bright flecks of gold in the grey.)

* * *

“Do you want to come over to my house?” Jamie had asked, in lieu of anything else.

Cam’s hair had still been slightly damp from his rushed shower, and at first he’d thought he’d had water in his ears.

“What?”

“I mean,” Jamie had said, eyes darting away behind the glasses. “We’d have to take your car, but. My mom’s working a long shift tonight, so. You could come over, if you want.”

Jamie punctuates the pauses with shrugs, but even then Cam can tell it’s an ever so slightly forced casual.

(He finds he doesn’t care.)

“Your scooter folds, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Ok.”

* * *

And so now he’s here, breathless and exhilarated in Jamie’s bed, as Jamie drapes their cloak over a shelf at the foot of the bed before moving to undo their button up. Cam sits up instinctively, his own hands sliding forward to cover Jamie’s.

“I can do that for you, if you want,” he offers, and Jamie tenses slightly.

“Just…give me a second,” they say, eyes flickering up to Cam’s before darting away again.

Cam can read everything in Jamie’s eyes, and he recognizes the vulnerability and wants to kick himself.

“Jamie.”

He keeps his hands over Jamie’s until they meet his gaze again.

“We don’t have to do anything, if you’re not comfortable.”

“You’re sweet,” Jamie says quickly, not quite focusing on him. “But I wouldn’t have asked you over if I didn’t have the utmost of intentions.”

(Cam decides not read too much into that, so he doesn’t. But.)

“Ok,” Cam drawls out slowly, hands still wrapped around Jamie’s. The paint on one of the nails is chipping at the edges. Cam had always thought they were black, but this close he can see they’re actually a very very very dark blue. “If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this my way.”

Jamie makes a low noise and drops their head, and Cam is quick to reach out and cup the side of their face, tilting it up to meet his eyes again.

“That means your way, Jamie,” Cam says sincerely.

“You’re--” Jamie stops, then starts again. “You’re too much, you know that?”

“I’ve been told,” Cam says, grinning wryly.

Then he leans forward and kisses Jamie before his confidence can wear off.

* * *

“Ok, so ground rules,” Jamie had said, as soon as they’d marched through the door. “We don’t really ‘do’ the whole ‘people over’ thing, so no touching anything.”

Cam had been entranced by the living room he found himself in. It wasn’t huge, or grand or open. Instead it’s cozy. Small, with a plush sofa shoved against the wall to his left, one T.V. set in a wooden stand against the opposite half-wall near the stairs. There’s a small cabinet with what look like small, collectable figurines. When Cam looks closer, he can see that they’re different kinds of porcelain shoes.

“My grandmother’s,” Jamie had said tightly, noticing Cam looking. “She used to collect them from all over the world, supposedly. We couldn’t throw them away.”

“Of course not,” Cam agrees, taking his shoes off out of instinct and stepping further into the living room.

He can see the tell-tale tile pattern of a kitchen peeking around the far edge of the living room, but his gaze had just been caught by the flags hanging above the sofa. There’s three of them, and while he recognizes the obvious rainbow, the others are lost on him.

“Non-binary and trans,” Jamie had mumbled, when Cam had curiously indicated the multi-color display. “My mom went and did some research after I told her and found them. I would have been fine with just the one, but she went and got the trans and rainbow ones too because ‘why not, right’?”

“That sounds awesome,” Cam had admitted, and Jamie had shrugged, flushing slightly.

Cam had been almost jealous. His parents would disown him if he ever did something like that.

He’d been distracted, then, by a picture of a young boy who couldn’t have been older than seven or eight, clad in socks and a pair of shorts and way-too-large, flowing blouse. The kid is squinting through a grin as if he’d been staring at the sun while posing, arms spread proudly, and Cam can just see what looks like maybe a tree in the background.

“Aw, look at baby Jamie!” he’d laughed, and Jamie had started, lurching forward and grabbing the edge of Cam’s shirt.

“Oh my god, no! Come on, upstairs.”

They’d _definitely_ been red, then, and Cam had laughed despite being dragged up to the second floor of the house.

* * *

“Ok, but wait,” Cam says, as he’s slowly undoing the buttons of Jamie’s shirt and Jamie keeps trying to kiss him to shut him up. “I’m serious…I know you said you want to do this and that’s great. I just…I want to make sure there aren’t any other ground rules going into this.”

“Ugh,” Jamie says, doing their absolute best to return the favor and free Cam from his shirt. “You make it sound so…”

Jamie stops abruptly and sucks a slow, sharp breath as Cam runs one hand up across their chest.

For a second, Cam panics and moves to pull back, but Jamie grabs his hand to keep it there and oh. _Oh._

“I’ll let you know, ok?” Jamie says, and their voice is a barely audible sound. “It varies, and it sucks, but I’ll let you know, ok?”

“Ok.”

“Good, now shut up, and fuck me,” Jamie sighs into his mouth, and Cam is all too happy to oblige.

* * *

Cam hadn’t been sure what he’d been expecting from Jamie’s room. It’s almost strange how _normal_ it is, and he realizes that maybe that’s just his assumptions but still. There’s a set of shelves nailed into the wall across from the bed, hung in such a way to give the illusion of floating, and one more standing bookshelf at the foot of the bed. There are shoes and candles and leather bound journals and books shoved into the square slots in the shelf, and Cam notes an intricately weaved dreamcatcher suspended from one of the hanging shelves.

“Don’t touch that,” Jamie had snapped, back to Cam, and Cam had quickly withdrawn his reaching hand.

“I wasn’t,” he had insisted, and Jamie had given him a look as they’d turned around with something in their hands.

“Here,” they had said, and Cam had held out his hand and taken a small feather from Jamie’s hand.

It was soft, and speckled with brown and grey. Attached to the feather was a short strip of leather that felt strangely pliable and easily breakable all at once. At the end of the strip, tied off just above the feather, was a small black bead. All in all, Cam had thought it was a bookmark, or else could easily have been a piece of the intricate dreamcatcher.

“Ok?” he had said, and Jamie had sighed and stepped forward, taking Cam’s fingers and wrapping the thin leather around them.

“It’s a token,” they had said, eyes solemn and just barely visible behind the glasses. “If…if things get bad, break the tether and say my name.”

“Um…ok?”

(That sounded like---)

“Cameron,” Jamie had said, eyes glinting sharply over the top of their glasses. “You trust me, right?”

(Why does he feel like that’s a trap?)

(Why does he feel absolutely no hesitation in answering?)

“Yes.”

And Jamie’s eyes had sparkled, and a genuine smile had curled the edge of their lips.

“Ok. Good. Now that that’s settled.”

(And suddenly Cam had been against the wall.)

* * *

“I still can’t believe you used to be blond,” Cam murmurs idly, after, tracing lazy patterns along Jamie’s spine.

“We will never speak of it outside of this house,” Jamie hisses back, and Cam laughs, then pauses, pulling back slightly.

“Is…that an invitation?” he asks, and Jamie pauses before propping up on an elbow to peer over at Cam.

“I mean. My number’s in your phone, isn’t it?”

“I don't think…,” Cam begins, reaching for his phone and then pausing as he sees his contact list. “It is,” he finishes, and Jamie grins, eyes flashing brightly.

“If you send more than three texts that don’t end in a question mark, I’m blocking you,” Jamie says bluntly.

But as Jamie had also said it with their face half buried in a pillow, Cam doubts the severity of the threat. He locks his phone and settles back, and for _once_ , closes his eyes without any lingering voices in his ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Third Eye by Florence+The Machine
> 
> Human by dodie
> 
> Beneath your beautiful by Labrynth 
> 
> All is soft inside by Aurora


	10. Sometimes I think it's getting better (well I can make this worse)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie finds the Wolf.

**_Indirectly, After_ **

**Jamie**

Jamie forgets to account for a lot.

Well, that’s not entirely fair.

Jamie accounts for so much more than they need to, when dealing with the tether and its limits.

(Jamie just forgets to account for _Jamie._ )

One thing they hadn’t accounted for, in all their planning of this moment, was not being able to locate the wolf.

Werewolves were nomadic by nature, Jamie knew that. Were sometimes violent, but never unnecessarily so, Jamie knew that too. Werewolves never turned people without having a pack nearby to support them, and they hardly ever turned people these days.

(Everything Jamie knows is a lie.)

Aff’s wolf, in particular…or, the one that had turned them, is nomadic only in the sense of its movement. It settles, in odd, out of the way places. No pack taken on the burden of claiming them. And it most _definitely_ turns people.

(Jamie discovers it only in stories, only in aftermaths.)

Aff’s wolf is one of those ‘off-chance’ wolves. No pack because they’d either outlived or did away with one. Violent and brutal and sadistic and cruel, was Aff’s wolf. Fond of hunting children and younger teenagers, turning them and leaving them to die from the attack.

(The fact that Aff had survived their turning, Jamie learns, is a miracle of itself.)

Jamie winds up effectively in the middle of nowhere, sandwiched in a town they hadn’t caught the name of.

(They’re right between a place called Salem and a place called Truth or Consequences, and Jamie thinks it’s somewhat poetic.)

The wolf had been lurking along the towns here. Jamie knows because all of the people they’d seen along the way had cowered at the sight of them, as if one wrong move and Jamie would explode.

(To be fair, it had happened before, but still. Jamie had no intention of hurting anyone.)

(Anyone innocent, that is to say.)

Jamie also knows because, in the town before the one they’re in now, the one with no name that they’d cared to remember, someone had told them in no uncertain terms just what became of ‘young folks like you.’

In the end, the wolf finds Jamie more than Jamie finds the wolf.

It creeps up on them, when Jamie is drifting through the outskirts of the town and eyeing the mythos and curios shops across the way, and wondering if they really wanted to risk their time with shopping.

(The only thing Jamie can think is that the wolf had missed the opportunity to be really cliché.)

“It’s not even the darkest hour of the night, yet,” Jamie comments morosely to the air. “If you really wanted to round off your act, you’d know that broad daylight really isn’t the kind of place for this.”

“And what would you hope to do about that, little Mage?”

Hm. That’s a new one. Jamie will have to write that down.

(People had called them all sorts of things, over the time since they’d gained their ethereal tether. They were still hoping someone would just settle and narrow it down for them.)

“Well, kill you for a start.”

The puff of air on the back of their neck is the only indicator of the wolf’s presence. Then the teeth follow, with just enough pressure against their skin to tell Jamie that if it wanted to, all it would take is a little _tug_.

“You’re a bit older than my usual game, but…I think I can make an exception for presumptuous Mages.”

The words are a chuckle disguised in a snarl; the slightest increase of pressure on the back of their neck.

(Jamie feels sickened to a degree they hadn’t thought possible, given how revolted they already felt.)

“You really think I didn’t make my own preparations?” Jamie hisses to the air in front of them.

They turn, blade sliding down their wrist and into the open air.

Behind them, again, an impossible chuckle, and _pain_ , slicing deep into their back.

(If Jamie had been a little more naïve they would have thought the wolf had a knife of it’s own.)

“You really think I wouldn’t have my own precautions?” The wolf mimics Jamie’s words back at them. Jamie snarls and turns again, concealing their knife once more. Slower, then. Ok. They’ve got time.

“Why are you here, little Mage?” The air behind them says, and Jamie bites down hard on the inside of their cheek. “The last I checked, your kind didn’t use werewolves in their components. Too _volatile._ ”

The word comes with another lance of _pain_ , and suddenly the sand beneath their feet is ink-black hardtop. They’re not even on their feet anymore, they’re on their knees, and the tether is slipping, and there’s a voice saying words that they hadn’t listened to the first time, but which come back now, inexplicably _going to make you think twice before—_

Jamie jerks just in time to avoid the next swipe of claws and comes back panting curses between their teeth. They taste blood in the back of their throat and almost gag, except there are more pressing things than what their brain has decided to throw at them. And so they force the creeping memories aside and wrap the tether tighter around them, wrap their hands tighter around the hilt of their blade as the dark chuckle comes again.

(Is it their imagination? Or is it the sky darker than they remember?)

“Your isolation must have made you a terrible listener,” Jamie calls out, braver than they felt. “I said I was going to _kill_ you. If I’d intended to harvest you, I would have been that specific, although I don’t intend to leave much of you to be worth it.”

That knife-pain comes again, sharp and jagged across their ribs. There’s an awful lurching sensation as the claws catch against bone and for a second, Jamie forgets where they are entirely as the pain consumes them.

“Such a bold threat,” the wolf rumbles, so close to Jamie’s ear they can practically feel the vibrations through their body.

(Oh. No, they’re just shaking that hard.)

“It’s a promise,” Jamie hisses, and stabs backwards with the knife.

They connect with something, that time, if the rewarding blow to the back of their head is any indicator, and when they whirl around it’s to catch a glimpse of matted fur and feral eyes.

(Color is impossible, through their glasses, but Jamie’s brain thinks it wants to be brown.)

The wolf snarls, furious and wild, but Jamie can _see_ it now, and so when the next slash of claws comes, it’s the wolf’s turn to meet air instead.

“A promise?” the wolf spits, and the puff of their breath is labored, just a hint. Jamie looks down and sees the tip of their blade coated with liquid. “I would have remembered encountering you before, poisonous _lich._ ”

(Oh, that’s just not fair. How are they ever going to figure it out, now?)

“Not me,” Jamie agrees, meeting the wolf’s eyes as it straightens slowly in front of them. “A friend. About four years ago. Maybe five. Small town, Maryland.”

The wolf is…much taller than Jamie. Its features could only just be recognized as a facsimile of human ones; or at least, in shape and mannerisms. The way it smirked and sneered despite the cut Jamie could now see along its arm. The gross pride in its eyes, the confidence in which it held itself. Those could all be mistaken as human traits.

“I remember,” the wolf rasps, bending down to loom better over Jamie’s head. “That was the one that didn’t run. I got the bitch to beg, in the end. Shame it didn’t turn out like I’d hoped, but…I can always get another.”

Jamie doesn’t even try for subtle, which is how they end up getting the bastard right in the heart.

(It seemed the wolf hadn’t been accounting for an upfront approach, either, given the way he screams.)

The sound the wolf makes is unnatural, a twisted mix of a feral howl and a desperate cry.

(It’s music to Jamie’s ears.)

The sound twists further, bubbling thick and disjointed, and with a jolt of horror Jamie realizes it’s _laughing._

(The tether slips, and the laughter morphs into a different voice altogether, for a moment.)

Jamie lurches back, removing the blade and tensing to give another blow when the creature _moves_ , and Jamie’s wrist is engulfed in a rough claw.

(The beast is large, in comparison; it’s really as if their whole arm is wrapped in that grip.)

“Clever,” the wolf chokes out, harsh and brutal. “But even clever liches are nothing without their hands.”

There’s no point in trying to pull away, but Jamie does, anyway.

(They think, in the aftermath, that maybe that’s what had made it worse.)

The exact sound that the bones in his arm make when they shatter is lost on Jamie.

(So is the sound he makes, unable to properly crumple to the ground due to the still-iron grip.)

His brain disconnects, fleeing hard and fast from his body and taking the tether with it, and so all Jamie really knows for certain is just pain.

(Presence of mind is such an interesting phrase.)

Some might say that Jamie was hardly sensible, to seek out a dangerous and deadly werewolf with only a couple of knives coated in Wolfsbane. But while Jamie certainly wasn’t sensible, not in that moment, or many others, what Jamie _did_ have was enough presence of mind. Or rather, a presence, in his mind.

And so the tether slips as his bones shatter, and Jamie slips away, leaving only the ethereal behind.

(The grip of the ethereal is much stronger than the wolf’s. Certainly much stronger than _Jamie_ , at least.)

The second knife slips into Jamie’s free hand and into the space of the wolf’s ribs in one singular, fluid motion. The only thought in Jamie’s head is _leave nothing left._

(When he finally collapses to the sand what feels like hourscenturiesmillenia later, he’s almost certain that there’s nothing left of Jamie, either.)

And then, from his pocket, his phone starts to ring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Iron by Woodkid
> 
> Big God by Florence+The Machine
> 
> Clubbed to death from The Matrix soundtrack


	11. Pull out your heart, crush what you're holding (make losing control look easy)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes Sasha doesn't know how to stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Implied/referenced internalized homophobia, manipulation, and misgendering.* 
> 
> Nothing explicit, just a heads up just in case.

**_Directly, After_ **

**Sasha**

“Ok, so what are we watching? The Fly, The Thing, or The Birds?”

“Why do all of these movies always start with ‘the?’”

“I dunno, but I’ve never seen The Fly except for once when I was a kid it was on and I didn’t know what it was, and my mom freaked. So, I want to _know_ , Cam.”

Sasha frowns at her unanswered phone, Cameron and Aff’s conversation fading in the background. That had been the third missed call.

“Have you guys heard from Jamie?” Sasha asks, indicating her unanswered phone as she turns to face the others.

Aff frowns and shakes their head, and Cam shrugs a shoulder, vaguely concerned.

“They said they’d be here…I was trying not to worry about it, but….”

“He’s late,” Sasha snaps, indicating the time. It is quarter to 8, and they’d all agreed to this movie date at Aff’s. “And not answering his phone.”

Sasha starts to type out another text ( _Where are you??? I know you didn’t forget about movie night.) _

When she looks back up, Aff’s frown had deepened, and was giving Cam a look in silent communication. Cam jerks his head a bit, echoing Aff’s frown, and they both dart sideways looks at Sasha.

“What?” she snaps, and Aff gives Cam a ‘well?’ look.

Cam sighs, then turns to Sasha. “Why do you keep doing that?”

“Doing what?”

She doesn’t understand…why is she the only one worried here?

(If anyone had asked, Sasha would scoff and adamantly deny. But she _was_ worried.)

Cam makes a face like he’s swallowed something sour, and looks to Aff pointedly.

(Sasha wants to know how and when they’d perfected the art of silent communication. She’s still trying to get her Hive to even _look_ at her now, after everything.)

“You keep using ‘he/him’,” Aff says bluntly.

Oh.

_Oh._

This is not a conversation Sasha wants to have right now, especially not when the person in question is not here.

(That is to say, Sasha is perfectly comfortable talking about people when they’re not present. She just hadn’t planned on ever having _this_ conversation.)

“Jamie uses both,” Sasha tries. “I don’t see why it matters.”

She ducks her gaze back to her phone before she can catch whatever look is made at her statement.

“I mean, ow, for one,” Aff deadpans, and Sasha winces.

“Shit, Aff. I didn’t mean--”

“For a _second_ ,” Aff continues lowly, cutting her off. “It fucking matters.”

“I didn’t mean--” Sasha starts again, then stops. She’d been about to say, ‘ _I didn’t mean for you_ ,’ and she thinks that that would have just made it worse.

See, the thing is, Sasha isn’t entirely sure why she does it either.

(She’s lying, even to herself.)

It’s not like she was intentionally trying to be hurtful or ignorant. She’s aware of pronouns and the importance of them and the varying sexualities and identities that exist, both in people as a whole and within the whole school. Not all of the teachers always agreed of course, but they made sure to be civil and polite and at least _acknowledge_ pronoun use. (Even then, ‘they/them’ had still been rare.) The school had set all kinds of policies into place -aside from neutral bathrooms, but they were getting there, supposedly- in an attempt to ‘keep up’ with the revolving world outside of their small town.

But still. There was Jamie.

And Sasha’s inherent problem.

Aff grimaces sharply, somehow picking up on what Sasha hadn’t said, and Cam shifts forward on his bean bag chair to place a hand on their arm.

“Aff,” he says softly, and it takes Sasha a second to recognize the warning for what it is.

“You know you sound just like those cops.”

Shit. _That’s_ a low blow.

(Sasha is almost proud.)

“Hey,” Cam says gingerly, but Aff shakes off his hand and stands.

(They’re taller than Sasha, she keeps forgetting that.)

She remembers it now, as Aff stands only a few feet away, in this bedroom space, and Sasha swallows hard past the feeling of being intimidated.

“I don’t get it,” Aff snaps, glaring down at Sasha. “What’s your deal? What’s the issue that you can’t even do this for our friend?”

They’re so much _more_ than just friends. But as they hadn’t all quite settled into anything officially yet, Sasha is going to ignore the way the word stings and pales in comparison.

“Aff,” she pouts with a sigh, and Aff pulls away, a sharp look in their eyes.

“No! No, you don’t _do_ that…not with us,” they say, just as sharp.

And Sasha pulls away, because she hadn’t even realized she was doing it.

(Doesn’t really know how to _stop._ )

“Hey, ok,” Cam says, standing as well and wedging himself gently between. Voice of reason, somehow. “Let’s calm down, yeah?”

“I’m calm,” Aff deadpans, still focusing on Sasha. “Just fucking pissed.”

“Clearly,” Sasha tries to joke. Cam shoots her a look, then, and she sighs. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well,” Aff huffs, kicking the bean bag they’d been sitting in. “It’s not me you need to apologize to.”

“I can’t exactly do that, since he’s not here, now can I?”

(Aff looks like they’re going to punch something.)

“I don’t get it!” And suddenly they’re shouting. “I just don’t _fucking_ get it!”

“It’s…I don’t know. A force of habit, I guess.”

(And now she’s just making excuses. Par for the course, Sasha. Par for the course.)

“Yeah but that’s what I fucking _mean_!” Aff snarls. “Force of habit from _what?_ You’ve known Jamie longer than any of us. And sure, ok, we made them those bracelets and everything, but you fucking _know_ Jamie prefers ‘they’.”

(And Sasha really has no words, but that won’t do, in her line of work.)

“From Before, I guess.” She supposes, if she’s _really_ being honest.

Because it’s true, Sasha _had_ known Jamie the longest. But Sasha had also known Jamie back when Jamie was exclusively, just that. Nothing _more_. Just, Jamie.

And she’s remembering that day in the hallways, after that one summer. Shit had gotten _interesting_ in all kinds of way that summer. For one, Sasha had finally clicked into step with her Hive and had been steadily working through securing further ground in the school. For another… _Jamie_.

(And she’s remembering how thrown she’d been, how caught off guard.)

How Jamie had seemed a bit _more_ , that day. More bold, more assured.

(And far less affected by Sasha.)

How she’d tried to make it about the hat, as if it were so simple as just that.

(How quick Jamie had been to shut down.)

How Sasha had had to find new ways to poke, to try and get around the guard. To try and get through; because if there was one thing she wasn’t going to have, it was someone that she _couldn’t_ have.

“It’s…stupid,” Sasha mutters, because really. It really kind of is, now that she’s actively thinking about it.

(Because, Sasha had found out, that the only way to get _through_ was to catch Jamie off guard. And the easiest way to do that, she’d found, was in how Jamie was addressed.)

Not that Sasha had actively been trying to be cruel, or anything like that. Because Jamie used both pronouns, sure, but there was always just a bit of a skip and a pause whenever Sasha addressed him, as if reorienting around everything she was saying. And that was usually enough that Sasha could slip in through those cracks in the guard and just have some _fun._

(The tethers just made things even _more_ interesting, as far as Sasha was concerned.)

 _Had been_ concerned.

Because now she was concerned, yes, but for an entirely different reason.

Her phone was ringing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fossa by Daughter 
> 
> Those Nights by Bastille
> 
> You're gonna go far, kid by The Offspring
> 
> Easy by Son Lux
> 
> Brick by boring brick by Paramore


	12. So how does it feel? (Hubris is a bitch)

**_Before_ **

**Jamie**

Jamie had always been a bit _more,_ even before the tethers.

Had always been able to sense and feel just a bit beyond the typical reach of the senses.

 _Synesthesia_ , the doctors called it.

A pain in the ass, Jamie called it.

But it was fitting; when the ethereal slipped in through the existing cracks in Jamie’s psyche, twisting through the swirls and patterns of their mind, it was just one thing that they hadn’t needed to adjust to.

 _They_ as a concept. _They_ as a whole. It was something Jamie was already used to…what was one more presence?

Jamie wove the tether into the colors of their mind and held it close, held it tight. Sealed it in behind the monochrome red tint of their glasses so the world could be easier to bear. And generally had a bit more _fun_ confusing people than before. When strange looks turned to words, a simple slip of the glasses was usually all it took to silence the vitriol before it began. 

(But that could have also just been because of their eyes.)

More than the utter fuckery that was their senses, Jamie hated their eyes.

(They had their grandad’s eyes, their mother said.)

Jamie doesn’t remember their grandad much, but he’d died before Jamie got too far past three. Their mother had said he’d hardly ever smiled towards the end of things; only ever when holding Jamie.

(Jamie had his name, too, as if one thing wasn’t enough. Greedy bastard.)

(It was their middle name, but still. Wasn’t fair.)

Jamie treated it like one would a fey. You don’t give them your middle name; your ‘true’ name, and you didn’t get stuck in a deal you couldn’t complete.

As far as Jamie was concerned, though, if people had a problem with them, well. That was _their_ problem, and if a look wasn’t enough then the tether would slip, and Jamie could have some _fun_ with it.

At least, that was the idea.

(Cities can be dangerous, at night. They’d forgotten that, somehow.)

“Hey, where you think you’re going dressed like that, _freak_?”

“Well, it was a formal venue, but you’re right. Maybe the heels were a bit much.”

Jamie turns, slowly, lips quirking and glasses slipping just enough so their amusement was plainly visible.

(That is to say, Jamie could be just as dangerous.)

There’s three of them. Typical thuggish demeanor; practically stereotypical in their hatred. The leader spits as he approaches, and falters just a bit at catching Jamie’s eyes.

(Sometimes, they overestimate. Sometimes, they forget.)

“I’m assuming you have some suggestions for what else I could have worn,” Jamie quips, shifting back lightly and squinting in the face of the sneer. “Please, enlighten me.”

(They can be dangerous to themselves, too.)

The man suggests something that seems highly unlikely and, Jamie is sure, anatomically impossible. They say as much, grinning brightly in the dim shadows of the streetlight.

“You know, that doesn’t seem anatomically possible. But why don’t you ask your buddy there? He seems like he’d be eager enough.”

The ‘buddy’ goes red, and shifts forwards with intent. The leader gets there first, hitting Jamie so hard that for a second, everything goes white. Then it goes _yellow_ , and Jamie curses as they right themselves, adjusting their glasses so everything is cool and red once more.

“That was rude,” Jamie hisses through their teeth, watching the man’s hands clench, the two others creeping around beside. “I was hoping we could just have a _civil_ conversation.”

Jamie wraps the tether tight into the word, focusing with intent on the gleam in the man’s eyes.

He hits Jamie again before they can tell if it had taken hold, and the follow up knee that catches their sternum dashes what little focus they’d had left.

They’re shaking, now, and one of the men comments on it in much harsher terms and far more brutal a motion.

An attempt is made; for what, Jamie isn’t entirely sure. Only that it ends with them on their knees, the streetlight sending odd bursts of sensation through their skull.

(Or maybe that’s from being punched. It’s hard to tell.)

Their brain scrambles to _disconnect_ , and Jamie hisses curses through their teeth between the swelling throbs of pain because no, they _need_ that; need to be present; need to focus if there’s going to be any hope of—

There’s a tearing sound that belatedly, Jamie recognizes as their clothes. Pain follows the sound, as does voices, and words, and…and nope. You can keep filtering that out, then, brain. Wonderful job.

Jamie wonders dazedly if they’re not just the slightest bit hysterical, but as hands grip them and the pain continues, they find that they don’t really have it in themselves to care.

(They’re still on their knees, and there’s hands and tearing and pain and screams.)

(In hindsight, Jamie will find that they’d been the one screaming.)

In the moment, Jamie screams, and kicks where they can kick and bites where they can’t kick.

They’re rewarded with pain and more hands, and an ever increasing loss of awareness, until Jamie isn’t sure where the pain ends and they begin. Their grip on the tether slips further and further and they’ve forgotten why it’s important they hold on; until their brain disconnects and shatters apart and the tether releases, and the last conscious thing Jamie can think is: _Make them scream._

* * *

When all is said and done, Jamie gathers themselves together slowly.

They pick up the hat half drowned in the gutter grate beside them.

(What was I doing in the street in the first place?)

Jamie adjusts their glasses.

(Their hands shake so badly they almost knock them off again.)

Their throat hurts.

(They cough, and realize that’s not the only thing that hurts.)

They have a flashback, right there in the middle of the road.

(Not of the space in Jamie’s memory, but of Aff, for some reason. The way they’d screamed, that day, in the courtroom. How Jamie had wished that they could have been that strong, to fight against their world falling apart.)

Jamie stands and pulls their cloak tight around them.

(One of their heels had broken.)

They limp back to their dad’s apartment.

(They wrap the tether tight around the spaces of their mind, until nothing of the ethereal bleeds through.)

Until all that’s left is just Jamie.

(And the bruises along their torso. And their throat. And everywhere that Jamie can see before the urge to break their mirror threatens to overwhelm them.)

They tie the tether even tighter, so it covers the gaps in their mind and leaves nothing behind to dwell on.

(Nothing to remember.)

And Jamie decides that that will be the last time they let the tether get the better of them.

(It’s not the tether that Jamie needed to worry about.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Amsterdam by Daughter
> 
> 100 Years by Florence+The Machine
> 
> Beautiful Lie by Hans Zimmer
> 
> No Time for Caution by Hans Zimmer
> 
> Catch me I'm falling from Next to Normal


	13. What you do it makes me sick (overhyped and generic)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's entirely unfair that the town they find Jamie in is named Hope.

**Sasha**

“Sasha?” Cam asks from behind her.

And suddenly Sasha is snapped back to reality.

(The caller I.D. said _Pain in my ass._ )

Sasha had names for all of their group; _Star Material_ was Cam. _Dopey Puppy_ was Aff. And _Pain in my ass_ \--

“Jamie, where the hell are you?” Sasha snaps into her phone, tone sharp to hide the way her voice was shaking, just a bit.

(There’s a soft chuckle from the other end of the line, and Sasha’s concern quickly spikes to fear.)

“I uh…got caught up. Was in the middle of something important,” Jamie says lightly.

His…Their voice... is _definitely_ shaking, and Sasha grits her teeth to keep from screaming.

“Where are you?” she repeats in a tight hiss, and Jamie exhales sharp and shaky, muffled slightly on the other end of the line.

“Honestly? I’m not entirely sure…somewhere very much in the middle of nowhere, I’m guessing.”

Jamie laughs, but it’s a crackling sound, and Sasha realizes with a sharp jolt just what it is in h-their voice that’s scaring her so much.

(It’s pain.)

“Is that…Jamie?” Aff says lowly from behind her, and Sasha straightens and turns decidedly.

“Can you?” She asks tightly. “Cuz I can’t right now.”

She holds her phone out to Cam, who takes it with a lift of his brow. Aff crowds close by, but Sasha forces herself to step back and away, trying to remember how to breathe.

(She is back in the church, suddenly, and Jamie is crumpled and bleeding at her feet.)

“You _what_? _!_ ” Cam exclaims, and she turns in time to catch his rapidly paling face and his wide, frantic eyes. “Jamie _what the fuck_?”

“What’s going on?” Aff demands, and their eyes dart accusingly back and forth between the two of them.

Sasha shakes her head helplessly, at a loss.

(She’d been practically helpless, then, too. Nothing to combat the cultists with. Nothing to offer except for words and platitudes.)

“Ok, just…fuck, just look around and tell me what you see,” Cam says desperately into the phone.

Aff _growls_ , and Sasha shakes enough out of herself to realize that their eyes had darkened considerably.

“What. the fuck. is going on,” Aff snarls again, and Cam holds out a hand sharply in a ‘hang on’ gesture.

(He grips the phone like a lifeline and Sasha almost regrets handing it to him. She could use something to hang on to right now.)

“Ok ok, just… _fuck_ ,” Cam hisses, free hand rubbing through his hair. “Just…we’ll be there, ok? We--”

He cuts off shortly, eyes tracking to Sasha. Aff pauses in their brutal bean bag murder to do the same. She feels put on the spot, but Cam hands her phone back over before she can decide what to do with the feeling. She’s about to lock it and put it away when she realizes the call is still going.

Cam quickly kicks the beanbag away from Aff before they can get too close to its vitals, and starts explaining, while Sasha shakily brings her phone back up to her ear.

(She can’t bring herself to say anything. Not when she can hear the short, crackling huffs of pain from the other end of the line.)

(Not when she can see the shadows spreading from Cam and see the glint of gold in Jamie’s eyes and hear the chilling howls rip from Aff’s throat.)

(And she’s not at the church anymore, but it’s there regardless, in the back of her mind.)

“ _Sasha_.”

She realizes Jamie had been saying her name for a while, the sharp cracks in the voice sharpening further with each call.

“Jamie?” she finally manages shakily. “We…we’re on our way, ok? We’ll be right there and…everything is going to be fine.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” Jamie croaks through a laugh that sounds more like a cry. “I want you to…I _need_ you to make sure…I don’t want Aff to see.”

* * *

“I can’t _fucking_ believe you knew they were doing this and you didn’t _say anything_!”

Aff is driving the truck, because with their hands around the wheel, there’s only so much anger they can expend physically.

Cam is in the passenger seat, because he’s the only one that can safely touch Aff right now, and his hand on their arm is the only thing keeping them from flying into the back seat.

(Sasha is in the back seat, because the only thing she can do is cringe and simper and worry.)

“I knew Jamie was _planning_ on it, I just didn’t think he…I didn’t think they’d actually _do_ it.”

(Which is partially a lie. It’s _Jamie_. Sasha should have known better.)

“It’s _Jamie_ ,” Aff snarls, fingers curling tighter around the wheel. Their eyes snap to Sasha in the rearview mirror, and Sasha winces at how dark they are.

“I think this is the turn,” Cam says hoarsely, and Sasha can see his leg fidgeting, his eyes darting to the tiny digital clock in the dash.

(Sasha is remembering the look of horror on his face from That Night; the realization that it was 3 am.)

It’s only pushing 10:30 now, but Sasha dares herself to lean forward anyway.

“Cam?” She murmurs, and he shakes his head, grimacing sharply.

“It’s fine,” he mutters through his teeth.

“You said that before,” she says.

He flinches, and she instantly regrets saying anything.

“Wow! You’re just on a roll tonight!” Aff lets out a sharp bark of a laugh that forces Sasha back into her seat.

“ _Guys_.”

Aff doesn’t slam the brakes, but the stop still jolts Sasha anyway.

“No,” Cam says, arm going out across the gap in the seats. It’s just in time to catch Aff when they lunge. “No, hey! We’re not _doing this_.”

“Aff,” Sasha tries, but the dark in their eyes is too overwhelming.

(She’s not entirely sure that Aff isn’t just the wolf, at this point.)

“Aff,” Cam says, arm still in between. “Keep driving. We’re almost there.”

Aff snaps back into the driver’s seat with only a passing growl, and Sasha considers it more or less a resignation. She sinks further into her own seat, eyes barely taking in the dust they kick up and the flash of reflection off the road signs.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers to the car at large.

Aff shakes their head once, sharply, and Cam sighs.

(Neither one of them say anything, and Sasha thinks it’s entirely unfair that the town they end up finding Jamie in is named Hope.)

* * *

They find Jamie on the outskirts of town, where the edges of the street lights turn everything gold.

(More specifically, Aff threatens the locals until they point to where they’d last seen the witch. Cam and Sasha trail behind to ease the locals.)

Or at least, Cam does, because Sasha is remembering Jamie’s request, and then Cam overtakes her because he’s far faster.

(Not quite as fast as Aff when they really want to be, Sasha discovers.)

There’s a short wail of sound before Cam reaches Aff, and an even shorter tussle as Cam all but tackles them before they can do any harm. Sasha is there immediately after but even she has to contain herself because…

(She’s back at the church, and Jamie is crumpled and bleeding at her feet.)

“Sasha!”

Cam is struggling with Aff, who is doing everything _but_ physically attacking him to get out of his grip. It won’t be long, Sasha knows, not with--

Sasha shakes herself and moves, dropping to her knees in the dirt as Aff continues to howl.

(She’s shaking so hard it takes everything within her to grip the torn edges of Jamie’s cloak.)

There are several bloody gashes tearing across Jamie’s body, and Sasha doesn’t _want_ to think it, but—

(Is this what Aff is capable of?)

“What is it with you and ruining cloaks?” Sasha quips, if only to try and ignore the way she’s shaking.

“It really does a number on budget…I’ll admit.”

“Jamie,” Sasha gasps, and Jamie grins at her waveringly.

“Hello darling,” Jamie rasps.

“Cameron!”

Cam comes over cursing, and Sasha stands abruptly as he drops to take her place, because Aff is---

(Sasha is back in the church, and Jamie is bleeding at her feet, and Aff is nowhere to be found.)

Cam continues cursing as he wraps the cloak tighter around Jamie. He mumbles something that Sasha can’t hear, isn’t sure she _wants_ to hear as she scans the desolate sand around her for Aff.

(What she finds instead is one decimated werewolf corpse, staring up at her with inhumanely yellow eyes.)

Jamie screams hoarsely behind her, the sound raw and barely more than a high screech of pain.

“ _Shit_!” Cam hisses, then. “Sasha! Sasha, get the truck.”

Sasha whirls just in time to catch the glint of the keys that Cam tosses to her. She notes the paw print charm and somehow finds it in herself to ask.

“How’d you get Aff’s keys?”

“I had a hunch,” Cam manages tightly, and Sasha notes the blood that is quickly starting to stain his hands.

She turns and sprints through the shuttered town, until she finds the old comic book shop whose back lot they’d parked the truck in.

(There’s a colorful display of posters advertising a comic called The Wicked+The Divine, and Sasha thinks they could definitely use something along those lines right now.)

She unlocks the car, and barely stifles a scream as two coal bright eyes stare up at her from the truck bed.

“Aff?” she hisses through a screech, and the eyes blink and a low whine sounds from the shadow.

(The whine quickly turns to a growl, and Sasha climbs into the truck and starts it before she can reveal how much it affects her.)

(In the running lights of the truck, she can see that there’s a blue butterfly charm on Aff’s keychain as well, and she’s nearly sick.)

She parks the truck just as Cam lurches awkwardly to his feet, Jamie firmly in his arms. She scrambles out and opens the door, trying not to focus too hard on the ruined cloak, the skewed glasses, the missing hat.

(She’s in the church, and Jamie is--)

“Where’s Aff?” Cam snaps shakily as he tucks the cloak tight around Jamie’s side.

“In the back,” Sasha answers, just as shakily.

He gives her a strange look before peeking into the bed of the truck and cursing as Aff growls at him, too.

(It makes Sasha feel moderately better, until she sees the utter ruin that is Jamie’s left arm.)

Cam curses steadily through the drive back, as Sasha holds Jamie’s head in her lap, fingers running through the tangles of their hair.

(It’s midnight, and all Sasha can think is that at least they’d found the person they were looking for, this time.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All those friendly people by Funeral Suits
> 
> Those Nights by Bastille 
> 
> The Currents by Bastille
> 
> (Side note: Hope, Truth and Consequences, and Salem are all actual names of towns that exist in real life.)


	14. So what did you think I would say? (Well you can't run away, you wouldn't)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasha is maybe not a terrible human being.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter include medical discussions, hospitals, implied drug abuse and descriptions of injuries. Nothing too graphic, but it's there.  
> ***This chapter also includes and deals with misgendering, dead-naming, and implied/referenced homophobia and internalized homophobia***

**Sasha**

The hospital, Sasha decides, is the worst.

(She’s back in the church and--)

The police station had been cold, brutal and efficient.

The hospital is a different brutality altogether.

Cam staggers with Jamie in his arms, while Sasha uses what little she has left to convince the doctors to help them without asking too many questions.

(They still ask, though, and that’s the problem.)

Aff is gone, fled from the truck with an echoing bang before Cam could even park. Sasha tries to deny the way it stings like a rejection.

(It _hurts_.)

The doctors and nurses swarm them, all wide eyes and clipped tones and _blood loss_ and _gurneys_ and _operating room stat._

They both panic at that, her and Cam, because that sounds so _extreme_ and they’re so _alone_ right now, just the two of them.

(Healing factors, Sasha learns, can only do so much.)

Specifically, she learns that much had been to keep Jamie from bleeding out. The doctor had been all too morbidly pleased to inform them that had they been just a little longer to get there…it was close.

(Healing factors, Sasha also learns, do absolutely nothing for drugs.)

There is frustration and no small amount of concern in the doctor’s face when he says that the amount of drugs currently in Jamie’s body prevent him from doing the operation as planned. And so instead of immediate surgery, it’s immediate detox, followed by surgery.

(Jamie has a history with painkillers, Sasha learns.)

More specifically she learns it when two of the nurses and one of the doctor’s recognizes their newest patient.

“Wait, is that _Wrenly_?” The young, male nurse asks.

(He’d be cute if Sasha weren’t trying not to be sick in the sterile waiting room.)

There’s confirmation and muffled swears and exasperated glances and whispers, and that’s how Sasha learns that Jamie has an issue with painkillers. There is panic and rushing and urgent demands and requests, and all Sasha and Cam can do is hold each other’s hands and wait.

“Cam,” Sasha tries at one point, when it’s obvious he won’t do it himself. “You need to get home.”

(It’s pushing 2 am, this time, and Sasha’s not going to let that happen again.)

Cam just shakes his head and squeezes her hand tighter, and all Sasha can think is that she _really_ can’t do this again.

(Aff shows up at some point, when Sasha had been almost certain they wouldn’t.)

Mrs. Wrenly shows up, and Sasha isn’t sure why she’d thought that she wouldn’t.

“Where’s Jamie?” is the first thing out of her mouth, and the doctors don’t hesitate to answer her questions.

(All they’d given Sasha and Cam were suspicious looks and orders to wait.)

But of course, Mrs. Wrenly takes precedent, and she’s given far more information before being asked, politely and with sympathy, to wait.

She curses softly, under her breath, then notices Aff and Sasha and Cam.

“Why is it always you three?” she mutters as she sits.

(Sasha would also like to know that, if she was being honest.)

Cam grimaces tightly where Aff glowers, and Sasha manages to catch a hold of Aff’s sleeve before they stand.

“We’re just as clueless as you are, ma’am,” Cam mumbles, flattening his hair under his beanie.

Mrs. Wrenly exhales sharply, eyes darting between the clock on the wall and the watch on her wrist.

Finally, a doctor approaches and takes Mrs. Wrenly to the side for a hushed conversation. It’s almost as amusing as it is nerve wracking to watch her facial expressions change through the doctor’s murmuring.

(Amusing, at least, until she leaves with the doctor to go and see Jamie.)

Aff starts pacing almost immediately.

(Sasha does not suggest they sit down, because that would have been reckless of her.)

Mrs. Wrenly comes back on the phone, and she curses when she hangs up. Sasha doesn’t envy her the pain she must be feeling.

(She _does_ however, envy Jamie. Just a little. To have such genuine _care_ ….)

“I have to go back to work,” Mrs. Wrenly says, eyes flickering over all of them. “I just wanted to apologize and…thank you…for being there.”

(Her eyes are a piercing sort of grey, and Sasha wonders if they can actually see straight through them or if it’s just the look on her face.)

“Of course,” Cam says, because he’s the only one they’re trusting to speak right now.

Mrs. Wrenly looks like she wants to say a thousand things at once, but she finally just grits her teeth and nods her head and leaves.

Sasha is trying to figure out a way to explain the situation that can be used for their advantage when a new, harried looking woman strides into the waiting room. There’s some recognition from the staff, and a few brisk, exchanged words before she’s led down one of the hallways towards the hospital rooms.

“Ok, how long is this going to _take_?” Aff snarls, leaping up from their chair once more. “Why can’t we see them…what the _fuck is going on?!_ ”

(Cameron had asked them to sit, because he was that reckless. And also the only one that Aff would listen to.)

Sasha starts to try and calm them down, but Cam gets there first. Or rather, Cam does more than just _start,_ and the doctor chooses that moment to finally walk over.

“You were the ones who brought in Jamie Wrenly, correct?”

“Yes, that’s us,” Sasha says quickly, smiling as brightly as she dared. “Can you tell us anything about what’s going on? We’ve been worried sick.”

(She doesn’t need to put any of the preternatural into it, but she does anyway, just in case.)

“Rightly so,” the doctor says, and for the first time, some of his uncaring façade cracks. He smiles grimly at them all, but mostly keeps his eyes on Sasha. “Given the state Mr. Wrenly was in. But to update you, Jamie is stable, all things considered. The detox was successful, but we can’t proceed with the surgery until he’s been sober for at least 24 hours.”

Aff snarls, and for a second, Sasha sees their eyes go _dark._ “Surgery?”

If the doctor is alarmed by Aff, Sasha is quick to distract him with another brief smile.

“Well, the bones of Jamie’s arm were nearly entirely shattered. Somehow, there was still movement capabilities in the fingers, so my initial advised amputation was disregarded. However, a surgery _will_ be needed to stabilize the remaining bones and reconstruct the break.”

“What the _fuck_!”

(Cam makes an executive decision.)

“Aff,” he says, quietly but sharply. “Why don’t you go cool off outside?”

Aff makes a sharp, guttural sound like a bark, expression twisting immediately in refusal. Cam turns, and there’s a brief moment of eye contact where it seems the entire world goes still.

(If that has anything to do with the bright pour of green from Cam’s eyes, well, that’s between them.)

Aff snarls again, and the sound is low and intense, but they back off and back _out_ , leaving the sterile confines of the hospital and fading into the dark beyond.

The doctor clears his throat mildly. Cam blinks and his eyes are his own again. Sasha exhales shakily and tries not to flinch when Cam threads his fingers though hers.

“Sorry,” he says stiffly to the doctor, plastering on the grin that makes him look so boyishly charming.

“Quite alright,” the doctor says blandly. He doesn’t return Cam’s grin. “Tempers can get high when it comes to medical, I understand. But while the timing might be less than ideal, I can assure you that there are limited complications.”

(His face twitches, and Sasha knows it’s a lie.)

“But if you’ll come with me, I can take you to Mr. Wrenly’s room before visiting hours end.”

“Please,” Sasha agrees, and if there’s just a bit of a command in there it’s only to be expected.

The doctor leads them down the hall and past closed rooms and open rooms and glass rooms and plaster. There’s the sterile scent everywhere and Sasha hates the inherent morbidity of it all, how somber and collected the staff seems to be.

A buzzer goes off on the doctor’s belt and he sighs as he looks at it.

“No rest for the weary,” he says playfully. “Mr. Wrenly’s room is just to the left there, number 315. I’ll be along once I finish my rounds to check in.”

“Thank you,” Sasha says sincerely, and means it.

He nods idly, already focused elsewhere. Cam and Sasha continue down the hall, and Sasha finds herself wishing that Aff was here, if only so there was a comforting presence on both sides of her and not just the one. She feels like she’s walking into some kind of battle, and she doesn’t think she’ll be able to hold her own in this one.

(Not that the church hadn’t been anything other than a massacre.)

The door to room 315 is open, though a curtain is slid up for privacy, and there is a woman’s voice speaking as they approach.

“….the situations you keep getting into, Jacob. It’s a wonder you haven’t been killed yet, or at the very least arrested.”

Sasha stops, Cam not too far behind.

“I don’t think we have the right room,” Cam starts to say, but Sasha looks and…yep. 315. And yep, the whiteboard on the door says Wrenly on it.

(Sasha has a feeling this is going to be another kind of massacre altogether.)

“Um, hello?”

She tries for soft and puzzled, and the voice on the other side of the curtain stops. There’s a sharp click of heels and then the curtain is thrust aside and the harried looking woman from the waiting room glares at her suspiciously.

“Can I help you?”

Her tone is just as short and brisk as her hair, and Sasha immediately hates her.

“We’re here for Jamie,” she says politely, and the woman’s frown deepens.

“You mean Jacob,” she says, as if Sasha were a small child.

Cam gives her a sideways look as if to say ‘do we?’ And Sasha is about to respond when another voice cuts in.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, let them _in_.”

Jamie’s voice is pinched and crackling, but the woman purses her lips and shoves the curtain completely aside so they can step in.

“Friends of yours?” she says, prim disdain written all over her face.

(Sasha decides that it’s a very punchable face.)

Jamie sits on the bed, without their signature cloak. The hat is missing, and their red tinted glasses are folded neatly on the plastic hospital table. Their left arm is splinted and stabilized in place with a sling attached to the ceiling, and the other holds the wire-bound remote to the tinny television, flipping through channels rapidly and not making eye contact as they walk in.

“Hey,” Cam says softly, beanie sliding nervously down his hair.

“Hey,” Jamie says back stiffly, and Sasha recognizes that particular note of panic in their voice.

“Honestly, Jacob, is that any way to greet your friends?”

Jamie flinches on the bed, eyes skittering sharply away and out the darkened window.

(Sasha wishes Aff were here. They’re the only one who could properly eviscerate this woman like she wants to.)

“I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met,” Sasha says, and she puts every bit of venom into her honeyed words as she can. “We are Jamie’s friends, yes. I’m Sasha and this is Cameron…and _you_ are?”

“Patricia Keefler,” the woman says, making no move to extend or shake her hand. “I’m Jacob’s therapist.”

(Beside her, Cameron chokes. Sasha tries to figure out how to make this woman’s death look like an accident.)

“You mean Jamie,” Sasha says, as if this woman were a small child.

The woman rolls her eyes and steps back, shifting the curtain closed behind them once more.

“Still insisting on that nickname, I see,” she sighs, as though put upon.

(On the bed, Jamie’s channel scrolling increases speed, and Sasha decides to forgo making it look like an accident.)

“Ok, look, I don’t know where in your profession you got the idea that you can treat your patients like that, but—”

“ _Sasha_.”

On the bed, Jamie is smirking, just a little.

(They’re also shaking, and Sasha wishes Jamie hadn’t stopped her.)

“Clearly I’ll be getting nowhere tonight,” the woman says, and there is a look in her eyes that Sasha does not like. “I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon, Jacob.”

“Oh I’m sure you will,” Jamie drawls tightly, fingers threatening to break the cheap remote.

“And I _will_ be talking to your mother,” she says, and there’s a finality in her tone that is only rivalled by the sound the door makes when Cam slams it behind her.

“Where the hell--?”

“Not a word, not one more _fucking_ word!”

Jamie flings the remote so hard it strains against the length of wire, clanging hollowly off the guard rails of the hospital bed. Sasha swallows hard and makes to step forward as Jamie muffles a scream in their free arm, face contorted with the force of it. It’s raw and visceral and terrible and Sasha feels her stomach threaten to rebel even further than it already was.

(This is worse than the church, she decides.)

“Jamie?” Cam tries softly, and Jamie’s hand falls from their face with a steady stream of curses.

(Sasha feels, very suddenly and very strongly, like a terrible human being.)

“Where’s Aff?” Jamie says, in response to Cam’s voice.

“Stepped out for a walk,” Cam replies, shrugging an awkward shoulder.

“That’s probably for the best,” Jamie mumbles with a sigh. “Though I would have _loved_ to have seen….”

Jamie trails off in silence, eyes flicking uncertainly up to Sasha and then back down to the stiff hospital sheets.

(Sasha is a terrible human being.)

“Jamie what the hell were you thinking?” Sasha hisses, if only to deny her terribleness. “Going after that _thing_?”

There is a flicker of something sharp and violent in Jamie’s eyes, and it’s with a start that Sasha realizes those eyes are two different colors.

(Technically, a third, as gold filters into the irises of Jamie’s eyes and drowns out whatever had been there before.)

“I was thinking it was something I could _do_ ,” Jamie snaps, and that sick realization wells up that much stronger in Sasha’s gut. “It was something I could do, so, I did. You’re fucking welcome.”

“You could have _died_!” Sasha insists, stalking closer to the bed. Jamie goes entirely still, and Sasha recalibrates and sits in one of the metal chairs right next to it.

“Well, I didn’t,” Jamie says tightly, eyes gold and _ethereal_ and still not meeting Sasha’s. “The wolf did. So.”

“So?” Sasha repeats, incredulous. “Jamie….”

Cam comes over and joins her, sitting in the second chair and looping his fingers through hers once more.

“I’m sorry,” Jamie says, quietly. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“What did you think we would do?” Sasha responds.

“Well…I didn’t think _you_ would do anything,” Jamie snaps, and Sasha has no right to be taken aback, but she is.

“Guys, let’s not start that shit now, ok?” Cam pleads lowly, and Jamie scoffs but Sasha just sinks in her chair because-

(She is a terrible person.)

“I’m sorry.”

“What was that darling? I couldn’t hear you over all the _bullshit_.”

“ _Jamie_ …”

“No!” Jamie shouts, the gold flaring sharp enough to silence Cam. “No, you don’t get to dictate my levels of pissed off right now. _You_ don’t.”

The glare is being levelled at Sasha, even though Jamie is pointing shakily at Cam, ensuring his quiet. And all Sasha can do is deflate in her chair and feel---

“I’m not bullshitting you, Jamie,” Sasha says softly. “Not this time, anyway.”

“I should end up in the hospital more often, if this is what it does,” Jamie says, and Cam gives a weak excuse for a laugh.

“Please, don’t.”

Jamie’s eyes flicker ever so slightly in his direction, and there’s something in that look that Sasha can’t define. But finally, Jamie sighs heavily, eyes slipping closed and arm coming back over to cover their face.

“Fuck, I can’t do this right now.”

(That’s fair. Sasha doesn’t really want to do this now, either.)

“Needs must, though, right?” she mutters back, instead, and Jamie makes a low noise in their throat that she thinks is _definitely_ disgust.

“ _Never_ say that again.”

“Jamie,” Cam chides, but Sasha can see the tremble working its way up Jamie’s arm once again, and she resolves to listen to the warning, this time.

“It’s…it’s one of her favorite sayings,” Jamie says lowly, and there is bitterness and revulsion and something that Sasha refuses to think of as fear in their voice.

“Sorry,” she says again, shifting forward just a bit. “And I don’t just mean…I mean I’m _sorry_ , Jamie. For how I was before. It…it was utterly shitty of me and not fair to you, either and I…I’m sorry.”

She looks up to find Jamie peering at her from underneath their arm, the gold receding to grey as she watches uncertainly.

“Well,” Jamie says finally, arm dropping down to their lap once again. “That’s…new.”

“I mean it.”

“Yeah, well. I can fucking _see_ that,” Jamie replies shortly, and Sasha realizes it’s not quite fear like she’d thought. Jamie was overwhelmed.

“I just...it was pointed out to me that maybe I could adjust some of my thinking and…I didn’t want to have anything in common with—”

Jamie’s expression turns sour immediately, and Sasha stops talking and shifts back carefully.

“You know, you _could_ fire her?” Cam suggests, fingers combing anxiously through his hair. “I’m pretty sure it’s illegal for her to treat you like that.”

“It is unfortunately not that straightforward,” Jamie says drily.

“Well, far be it for any of _us_ to do anything straight,” Sasha remarks.

There is an immediate lack of humor and she lifts a brow cautiously.

“What, can…can I not make that joke?”

“No, you can’t,” Jamie agrees promptly, but they’re smirking, and there’s a lightness in their eyes that hadn’t been there before. “You have to be in a relationship with us for at least another month before you can start making non-straight jokes.”

Cam snorts quietly beside her, and Sasha finally allows herself a small smile.

“So you’re saying there still _is_ a relationship to be had?”

Jamie gives her a quick, scrutinizing look with those eyes, but the smile is genuine, when they finally nod.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’d say so.”

“…ok.”

They end up idly scrolling through the hospital t.v together, trying to narrow down the alternative channels and studiously avoiding the obvious fact that it was practically 5 am. The doctor comes back and kicks them out when he finds out they’re still there, and they leave with rapid assurances to be back after school. Sasha promises to bring Aff and shitty horror movies next time, and the sidelong glances from the doctor are worth it for the smirk Jamie gives her.

(Sasha is…maybe not a terrible human being, after all.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a pessimist, I'm pretty damn optimistic by Paramore
> 
> I don't by Kodaline 
> 
> Chlorine (acoustic version) by Twenty One Pilots 
> 
> Drugs by Eden


	15. Do you need some time to think it over? (Hello, my name is human)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *This chapter is mostly fluff but does include dead-naming and discussions of dead-naming, as well as implied internalized homophobia and implied/referenced drug use/abuse.*
> 
> [The views reflected in this fic do not necessarily reflect the views of the author. I for one, enjoyed The Matrix. And musicals are great.]

**Jamie**

All things considered, Jamie thought that things could be worse. It’s not as if he were stuck in a hospital bed after surgery, forced to watch The Matrix, with no painkillers.

(Oh. Wait.)

“Aff, I love you, but if you put on Reloaded, I _will_ hex you.”

“But it’s _The Matrix!_ ” Aff blurts, a scandalized look on their face as they whip around from their chosen seat on top of Jamie’s feet.

(If that was to prevent Jamie from being able to reach the I.V drip, well. Jamie would pretend to be none the wiser.)

Cam snorts from his perch on the window sill, and Sasha cuts her eyes away from Jamie’s face to scoff lightly.

“I was promised shitty horror movies, not shitty movies in general,” Jamie continues, and Aff gasps, staggering dramatically up from the bed.

“You take that back!” they hiss, and Cam barely stifles a chuckle as he runs his hands through his hair.

“You’ve started it now, Jame,” Cam mumbles, and Jamie hides his smirk by pretending to peruse the pile of movies by his side.

(He really should end up in the hospital more often, if this is what it gets him.)

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

(Or maybe not.)

Cam straightens sharply, one hand reaching almost instinctively in a calming gesture as Aff turns on the figure in the doorway. Sasha goes entirely still, and Jamie would be lying if he’d said he hadn’t done the same, eyes scanning desperately _away_ despite the fact that he knows there’s no escaping this.

“Uh, yeah,” Aff drawls cautiously, reading the air of the room with only a single sweep of their eyes. “We were just putting on The Matrix Reloaded, so…I mean. Unless you wanted to join us.”

There’s a daring edge to Aff’s voice that Jamie both loves and dreads, and he can’t help glancing sideways to gauge Patricia’s reaction. If she took it as an insult, or worse, a _challenge_ ….

It’s there, in the edge of her eyes when they cut to Jamie with a lift of her brow. And Jamie would curse except he doesn’t trust his voice right now. Why _now_? His brain itches to _disconnect_ , and the ethereal whispers unhindered by his glasses, and it takes everything not give into it and just _pull_.

“We are not putting on Reloaded,” Sasha says, and it’s proper and polite but _pointed_ , eyes only on Patricia, still poised in the doorway. “We are putting on a classic, and none of you are going to judge me for it.”

Jamie tears his gaze away in spite of himself, eyeing the title in Sasha’s hands warily. Then he laughs, the noise startled from him and making it harsher than he’d intended.

“Is that Little Shop of Horrors?” He manages shakily, and Sasha flushes ever so slightly, lips twitching despite her still-sharp eyes.

“It counts,” she says defensively, swapping it out for The Matrix in the DVD player. “It’s got horror in the title, doesn’t it?”

“Oh,” Aff says lowly, eyes going wide as they track to Sasha. “Oh you did _not_ just….Cameron!”

Cam holds his hands up in surrender, letting himself be swept up into it. “Hey, I learned ages ago not to diss Sasha’s taste in movies.”

“It’s a _musical_ ,” Aff insists, mortified. Sasha tosses her head back, all set for a retort, when Patricia clears her throat sharply.

(Jamie does not flinch, and no one was paying enough attention to call him out on the lie.)

“Far be it for me to interrupt your play time,” she says shortly, and Sasha’s eyes narrow in the woman’s direction.

“Play and relaxation is very important for making a smooth and expedient recovery after traumatizing experiences,” Jamie quotes promptly, and the look on Patricia’s face is almost worth the sharp pang of _panic_ at his audacity.

“Yes, well,” she says, and Jamie knew he wasn’t going to get away with that. “So is having a supportive presence to talk to.”

“Yes,” Sasha cuts in brightly, and she’s got _that_ look back in her eyes. “And Jamie has three.”

Patricia smiles like she thinks Sasha is cute, and Jamie’s hand curls around the starchy bedsheets to hide the way it starts to shake.

(Leave it, leave it, _please_ leave it.)

“A _professional_ presence,” Patricia says, and Sasha grins, all teeth.

“This is like, what, Cam? Traumatizing experience number three, for us? I’d say that makes us pros at this whole thing.”

Patricia smiles, but it’s tight and forced where Sasha’s is entirely predatory. “Well, while I don’t doubt you have had your share of _interesting_ experiences…you don’t have the experience of dealing with Jacob as I do.”

(Jamie does flinch this time, and absolutely everyone notices it.)

‘Dealing with?’ Cam mouths, eyes narrowing in disbelief. The predatory look in Sasha’s eyes grows, and Aff jerks sharply, head whipping to stare in open shock.

“I…I’m sorry,” they growl, a stunned sort of grin twisting their expression. “Did you just…?”

(Jamie makes an executive decision and inches the I.V. just a little closer.)

It takes all of two seconds for Sasha to catch the movement, but by the time she actually turns her paralyzing stare to Jamie, things had already started to comfortably blur.

(And also uncomfortably _sharpen_ , the ethereal slipping in much easier through the cracks of Jamie’s rapidly drifting consciousness.)

“Clearly, now is not a good time. You’ll have to come back during _different_ visiting hours.”

Sasha words take on a sickening orange hue, and Jamie stifles a curse as he realizes his glasses are still on the table beside him. He makes the mistake of trying to reach for it.

“Jamie. Stop.”

There is something in Aff’s voice, and so Jamie stops, hand just shy of hovering over the bed rail. It’s his broken hand, and in hindsight he realizes just how disastrous that would have been.

(There is _something_ , on Patricia’s face, and Jamie can’t quite tell what it is, but resolves to panic over it later.)

“I can see that,” she says. (Her words are blood red and feel like bruises against Jamie’s skin.) “I’ll set up a different time with one of the doctors.”

The doors clicks softly closed behind her, but the sound explodes like a gunshot in Jamie’s head and suddenly everything is _too much_ and he’s screaming again.

(This is why they’d put fentanyl in the I.V. instead of morphine.)

“What the absolute _fuck_?”

Aff’s voice is quiet, but it still spike sharp through Jamie’s skull in a dizzying array of _yellows_ and _greens_ and _blues_.

“Jamie.” Sasha’s voice is a low whisper in his ear, grounding despite the _violet_. “Open your eyes and breathe. Slowly.”

Jamie does. Or at least, the opening his eyes bit. He’s most definitely having a panic attack, though.

(He very much wishes it was morphine in the I.V. Stupid synthetic narcotics fucking with his system.)

The room is red, the cool, deep tint washing out the remaining colors that try to take over. It’s enough to soothe some of the clawing itch under Jamie’s skin, enough that he doesn’t flinch away when Sasha grabs his hand, and Aff sits back on his feet, and Cam drags the I.V. back out of his reach before hitting PLAY on the DVD player.

The creaky sounds of an _old film_ drift from the tinny speakers, and Sasha hums softly under her breath along with the opening numbers. He manages to make it halfway through the first act like this, nestled comfortably between all of his friends, his partners, his _more_.

But it’s still there, itching itching _itching_ at the back of his skull and pulling tight under his skin, and he’s picking at the immovable plaster around his wrist and wishing he could so easily claw it from his veins.

Sasha notices, because that’s what she does now, she _notices_ all the cracks in Jamie, sometimes before even he can. But that doesn’t stop it, doesn’t stop _him_ , and so it’s into the screaming void that Jamie sits up suddenly and says

“My mom named me Jacob.”

(Cam pauses the T.V and it stops on a flickering image of a man being devoured by a monstrous plant.)

Sasha says nothing, but she squeezes his hand just a little tighter. It’s the only thing keeping Jamie from disconnecting entirely, and so he adjusts his grip and squeezes back. Aff is silent, entirely still at the foot of the bed, painful recognition on their face. Cam is still sat carefully by the I.V., and he inches himself just a little closer to the side of Jamie’s bed.

“When I was a kid, I always really liked the name Jamie. I don’t know, I thought it was a _cool_ name, and I wanted…something.”

He shrugs, lamely, and Aff’s hand closes comfortingly around his ankle. Sasha starts tracing an idle pattern on the back of his hand.

(The man on the T.V. jerks in awkward pause, and Jamie wishes they could trade places.)

“And then later, when I was trying to figure out all the different ways in which I could _fit_ into this body, it just kept coming back. Jamie. It was _my_ name before I even knew how important it all was.”

He stops, and when he takes a second to breathe he realizes that he’s shaking. Sasha squeezes just a little tighter, eyes regretful but solemn as she whispers

“You don’t owe us anything, if you don’t want.”

There is a startling rush of affection at her words, at the utter sincerity in them, and Jamie clears his throat and laughs tremulously.

(He’s not ready to unpack _that_ quite just yet.)

“I was…stupid, as a kid. Far less put together than…I was _less_ , then. And over time, and with the divorce, it was hard, I think. Mostly for my parents, but I can recognize on some level that it was hard for me too.”

(The drugs had helped some of that. Hadn’t stopped being hard. But Jamie had _cared_ less about it, and that had been the point.)

“Patricia was not my first choice,” Jamie admits, spewing her name with all the venom it deserved. “Wasn’t really _my_ choice, either. But it was her or…”

“Rehab,” Cam breathes lowly, leaning back in his chair with the realization.

That’s right. Cam had been there for that summer. Jamie had almost forgotten. That had been a _bad_ summer, in more ways than just the recent divorce and the sudden constraints of the newly gained tether.

“Yeah,” Jamie confirms shortly, refusing to meet his gaze. “So I got Patricia, and…I mean, she’s not _entirely_ shitty, as far as therapists go…it’s just. She make me feel- I’m not _there_ , with her. I can’t be _there_ , with her and…it’s hard.”

(Jamie can stare down a bunch of insane cultists, but it’s one wholly sane therapist has him rattled. What a twist fate had dealt him.)

“Jamie…”

“No, don’t you dare,” Jamie snaps, cutting off whatever Sasha had been about to say. “You get that tone out of your voice _immediately_.”

Sasha falls silent abruptly, face pinching with hurt, but Jamie just couldn’t stand that _guilt_ in her voice.

“You’ve got nothing to make up for,” he tries, if only to appease some of the tension still in the room. Still in him. “You…you’re not anything like that.”

(Like her, goes unsaid but still heard.)

“But I still….”

“No,” Jamie insists, hand still shaking ever so slightly in her grip. “No, because you still _see_ me, even if you pretended not to. She…just doesn’t. It’s not the same. _You’re_ not the same.”

“Ok,” Sasha says quietly.

(She’s not convinced. That’s ok. They’ll work on that.)

“I can give you the info for the office that my therapist works at,” Aff offers after a moment. “I mean, their whole staff is pretty cool with all that stuff.”

“Maybe,” Jamie says, fidgeting slightly, his fingers still wrapped around Sasha’s. “I’ll think about it.”

“Hey,” Sasha says, and he brings his gaze back up to hers. “You’ll always be Jamie with us. You’ll always be _here_ , with us.”

And that, well. That’s something he can live with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my name is human by Highly Suspect
> 
> Human by Sevdaliza
> 
> The Waves by Bastille 
> 
> Another Place by Bastille


	16. Here, here, my friends and me (you are my familiar)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fate can be kind, when it wants to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Otherwise known as, I really wanted to write some fluff, and I'd been meaning to write the story behind Jamie's bracelets that I've been hinting at, so. Fluff!

**Cameron,** _**Then** _

"Ok, so…I have an idea.”

It’s just him and Aff and Sasha this time, hanging out at Sasha’s because she’d insisted it would be fine with her parents not home, and Jamie had insisted that they’d had better things to do.

(They still hadn’t quite worked out the whole thing from the last time they’d all hung out.)

And anyway, Cam’s parents _had_ been home, and Mr. Flowers still didn’t really know about all of them just yet.

(Also because Mr. Flowers was still a bit wary of them since the whole ‘jail’ thing, so. Sasha’s.)

“An idea?” Sasha quips, brow lifting.

“Yeah, well…,” Cam rubs the back of his head nervously, eyes on Aff. “I was doing some research and I thought it might be a good idea, or whatever.”

“Research?” Aff looks up from where they’re lying, upside down on Sasha’s bed. “We don’t have a paper due…. _fuck,_ do we have a paper due?”

They sit up, body lurching sharply and just barely avoiding Sasha on her own perch near the pillows.

“No,” Cam assures quickly. “No, uh…I meant I was doing some research on uh…on you and Jamie.”

(Phrasing? says a voice in the back of his head, but as it’s his own voice, he doesn’t quite panic over it. Even if he is _definitely_ flushing as Aff’s brows furrow.)

“Ha-ha, what?”

Shit, maybe he should have thought this through more.

“Um, well I mean, I didn’t want to be weird or anything, I just thought…it’d help? And anyway, I was reading this thing about pronouns and all and I know how Jamie uses different ones and so I had this idea to make bracelets for them.”

(He’s rambling. Fuck, he _really_ should have thought this through more.)

“Wait--” Sasha starts to say, but Aff holds up a hand and cuts across her, head shaking slightly.

“Wait…so you went and looked shit up _online_? Instead of just, I don’t know- _talking to me_? Or Jamie?”

(He _really_ \--)

“Um…,” Cam says in answer, and Aff’s disbelieving look grows ever so slightly as they swing their legs around to face front.

“Ok. Ok, well _that_ aside, what’s this again?”

“Um, it’s not that I didn’t want to talk to you, I just…I didn’t know if that’d be…if you were….”

“Cam, it’s fine,” Aff says, and their expression softens. “I get it. Just, next time, ask me? I’m pretty much an open book and I’d rather just talk about it directly than anything else, ok?”

“Ok. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” they say again, and Cam’s about to apologize some more when Sasha cuts back in.

“Your idea?”

“Right. Um, well basically it’s just different bracelets with different pronouns on them and I thought it might be nice if we made them ourselves so that…I don’t know so that Jamie has a piece of us?”

(It’s stupid. Of course it’s stupid, he shouldn’t have even opened his mouth and now….)

“Yeah, I think that’s sweet!” Aff says, eyes sparkling with the force of their grin. “We could make them different colors…it’ll be just like back at camp!”

“Ha, well I didn’t mean for it to…but yeah, I think it’ll be neat. Sasha?”

Sasha had been quiet through Cam’s rambling, but now she looks up, noticing the eyes on her.

“What?”

“Are you in?” Cam asks lowly, trying to gauge anything from her expression.

(She still hadn’t gotten over things from the last time they’d been together, either. As far as Cam knew, she and Jamie hadn’t even looked at each other since then.)

“Yeah, I mean, sure.” She shrugs, picking idly at her nails. “I guess it’ll be fun, or whatever.”

(Well with that ringing endorsement.)

“Ok, great. Thoughts on colors, anyone?”

* * *

It takes them two days to make the bracelets. Mostly just because they had to wait till after school the next day to get the supplies, but then they settle into the pattern of it and Cam thinks maybe this might actually work. They’d all decided that the bracelets would have Jamie’s name on one side, and then their pronouns on the other side. Aff had suggested they have the pronouns on the side of the bracelet closest to Jamie’s wrist, that way if they needed to be discreet for any reason they could.

Sasha had surprised them both when she’d said she would make the bracelet with the They/Them pronouns on it. She’d refused to engage when Cam tried to ask if this meant she was ok with Jamie now, but the bracelets had been finished in record time.

Cam had made a bracelet with strands of sky blue melting into grey, with a few small gold beads woven into it. It said Jamie on one side, and He/Him on the other side.

(If Cam had designed the bracelet to be a reflection of Jamie’s eyes, well. There weren’t many who could call him out on it.)

Aff had chosen strands of off-white and crimson red blending in and out. Theirs just said Jamie on one side, and in place of a pronoun on the opposite side, Aff had attached a small crimson butterfly charm. Aff had explained the lack of pronoun as a simple ‘for when Jamie just wants to be Jamie,’ and left it at that.

Sasha had taken a little longer with her bracelet, and at first Cam had worried that maybe she wasn’t as into it as he’d thought. But then when she’d picked him up before school she’d slipped the bracelet into his hand.

He’d thought it was black at first, and then maybe navy in a certain light. Sasha said it was midnight blue, and then smirked just a little. Small silver flecks were dotted along the bracelet almost like stars, and it said Jamie on one side, They/Them on the other.

(All in all, Cam was inordinately pleased, and terribly anxious all at once, because now…now he actually had to give them to Jamie.)

“Hey, uh. Thanks for doing this,” he says, packing the bracelet carefully into the faux-leather gift box with the others.

“Did you think I wouldn’t?” Sasha says, a sharp look on her face.

“I didn’t know,” Cam says honestly, as they pull into a space in the school parking lot. “You’ve been pretty…quiet…on the whole Jamie front, so I wasn’t sure.”

“And you don’t think there’s a reason for that, _Cameron_?”

(Oh. Fuck.)

“Look, Sasha, I can’t say that it didn’t mean anything to me, because I’d be lying, and you both deserve better than that.”

She purses her lips tightly and says nothing, and Cam’s fingers twist through his hair to keep from reaching out to her.

“But know that I do love you, Sash. I love all of you, and nothing’s going to change that, alright?”

“Alright,” she says softly, and the wall is down from behind her eyes, but she gets out of the car before he can say anything more.

(Alright.)

* * *

Almost as if fate were just having a good ‘let’s fuck over Cam in as many ways as possible’ moment, Cam can’t even get a moment alone with Jamie all day. Lunch rolls around, and he catches a glimpse of the red cloak and books it as fast as he can without looking like a creep.

(Which is nearly impossible, really, but he tries.)

“Jamie!”

“In the middle of something.” Jamie holds up a finger, eyes focused on their phone and Cam halts abruptly.

“Um…hey,” Cam says quietly. “I know you’re really busy, this’ll just take….”

“Yeah?” Jamie says, and Cam looks up from rummaging in his backpack to see that Jamie is…walking away on their phone.

(…a second.)

“Cool.”

(And then the bell rings.)

*

Fate is a bitch, Cam decides, staring forlornly at the clock during Calculus. Fate is a fickle bitch and the class doesn’t end fast enough.

“Cameron.”

Cam jumps as he steps back out into the hallway after class. Jamie gives him a cool look over the edge of their glasses, lips quirking ever so slightly in disinterest.

“You wanted something earlier?”

“Uh, yeah,” Cam stammers, swinging his bag off his shoulder. Jamie takes a brief step backwards, eyes roving the hall as Cam pulls the box out of his backpack. “Hang on.”

Jamie lets out an undignified yelp as Cam quickly reaches out and drags them both backwards into the now empty classroom.

“Cam, what—”

“Here.”

Cam thrusts the box out before he can lose his nerve, and Jamie falls silent, hands carefully taking it from him.

“What’s this?” Jamie says, eyes peering sharply from over the glasses, making absolutely no move to actually _open it_.

“It’s just something we…me and Aff and Sasha made for you. I…thought it’d be a good idea,” Cam says lamely, hands rubbing through the hair at the back of his head.

“You’re doing your weird hair thing, so it’s clearly something good,” Jamie quips, then stops again as they open the box.

“It’s silly, uh…I mean, we thought maybe…it’d be nice if you had something of us,” Cam rambles as Jamie pokes at one of the bracelets.

“You guys made these?” Jamie says, and their voice is blank, if pitched just a little higher with the question.

“Uh, yeah,” Cam says, shrugging a shoulder carefully as Jamie lifts the blue and grey bracelet and sees the pronoun tag. “I made that one…Aff made the white and red one and Sasha made the darker one there.”

“Huh,” Jamie says heavily, face carefully devoid of expression. “Huh.”

Cam shifts uncertainly as Jamie slowly examines all of the bracelets closer, tracing each tag carefully before finally slipping the blue and grey onto their…his…left wrist. Jamie doesn’t say anything, just stares at the band a moment, swallowing hard, eyes flickering behind the glasses.

“Do…do you--?”

And that’s all Cam gets out before Jamie is kissing him.

Cam is entirely too flustered when the final bell rings, breaking them apart, and Jamie grins slyly as he pulls back and adjusts his cloak.

“I love them,” Jamie says quickly, and then disappears out the door into the tide of students.

(Apparently, fate is also kind, when it wants to be.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 4AM by Bastille
> 
> Somewhere only we know by Keane
> 
> Jefferson Aero Plane by Relient K
> 
> Too much is never enough by Florence+The Machine


	17. Breathe, keep breathing (don't lose your nerve)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That there, that's not me.
> 
> This isn't happening. 
> 
> I'm not here.
> 
> -How to disappear completely, Radiohead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok. 
> 
> ***Please be warned, this chapter contains violence/child abuse, descriptions of injuries, implied/referenced homophobia, mentions of hospitals, and a whole lot of negative thought processes and unhealthy coping mechanisms, self-harm, self-sabotage, and implied suicidal thoughts.***
> 
> I apologize in advance. This one is *really* dark. It's definitely as dark as this story is going to get, and I promise that there will be fluff and proper processing of all of this. 
> 
> But this chapter is *really* dark and features heavy, dark themes. Please feel free to skip this chapter if you need to, and remain safe while reading!

**Jamie**

Cam is in a hospital bed, and it is entirely Jamie’s fault.

(Entirely.)

Sasha doesn’t let go of Jamie’s hand the entire time they sit, waiting once again in the sterile lobby, and Jamie honestly doesn’t want her to.

(Doesn’t deserve it, not one bit, but he’ll take what he can get. She’ll go back to hating him once she finds out the truth.)

“I just…,” Sasha says, then falters, eyes cutting uncertainly to the side. She shifts closer, squeezes his hand tighter, lowers her voice. “I can’t believe he would…I mean. Jamie? You were…there. What…what happened?”

He had been there, in a sense. The tether had broken and he’d felt it right away, felt the jolt like something sharp and pointed through his skull, felt the desperate _pull_ of the tether; the demanding insistence from the ethereal that he needed to _do something._ And he knows how it must have looked from Sasha’s end, knows that he must have looked so hollow, so… _empty_. As he’d been ripped along the tether and pulled towards the source of the break. Where he’d found Cam.

(It had taken every ounce of the limited control that Jamie had not to tear into the spaces of Mr. Solomon’s mind and leave nothing left.)

“Jamie?” Sasha presses, and he can’t do it. He can’t tell her. He…doesn’t want to lose her, too.

He reaches out, instead, feeling along the edges of the ethereal tether, now broken between him and Cam. He can sense the other end, vaguely, like one can sense a lost tooth; in gaping, painful spaces. But he can do absolutely nothing to pull it back, and the more he tries, the more he can feel the backlash build. He’s going to have to craft a new tether, and the thought of it leaves him feeling even more sick and achy than before.

“You two are here regarding Mr. Solomon?”

Jamie flinches, in spite of himself, head snapping up sharply because _no_ , he’d just _done_ this! But then he sees a nurse staring at them with that vacant pity that all hospital staff are so well trained in, right down to the janitors. And he nods, forces himself to his feet, taking Sasha with him. They’re led down the halls and there’s a small part of Jamie that is remembering his own, too recent time in this same place, and feels terrified.

(He shoves that part down. It doesn’t matter now, and he deserved far more than just a little discomfort.)

Cam’s in a room numbered 632, all the way at the top floor of the hospital, and Jamie focuses on the mathematical fun to be had with the room number to keep from being sick at the sight of Cam.

(There’d been so much blood, when he’d reached the place where Cam was. Cam’s clothes had been horrifyingly slick with it, his skin split in too many places to be anywhere near safe, Jamie was sure. He hadn’t hesitated to push into the fraying edges of Mr. Solomon’s rage, the haze of it thick and heady in all the wrong ways. Had torn through what he could reach and forced him _back_ and _away_.)

He hesitates now, until Sasha drags him forward, and he’s in a chair tucked close to Cam’s bed, so close the bar digs into his knees.

“Hey,” Sasha croaks tearfully, and Cam blinks blearily over at them.

(His face splits into a smile beneath the bandages, and Jamie tries not to think about the way his face had been split when he’d found him.)

“Hey,” Cam says back, so genuinely delighted by their presence, despite the fact that he should feel nothing but revulsion to see Jamie. “You guys didn’t have to….”

“Shut up, of course we did,” Sasha snaps shakily, lurching forward and grabbing Cam’s hand.

(Let go, Jamie pleads silently, as Sasha makes no move to release his own hand. Let go, I don’t deserve….)

“Aff’s dad wouldn’t let them out so late,” she continues with a regretful wince. “But first thing tomorrow, he said he’d drop them off himself to check in before school.”

“Cool,” Cam mutters, and his voice breaks halfway through.

(His ribs had been broken, too, Jamie remembers. Remembers pushing as much of his all too inadequate healing into Cameron’s body and willing him to please be please be _please be ok_.)

“Sash,” Cam whispers, and Jamie is suddenly aware of how silent it had been. “Can you give…give us a second?”

“Sure.” She stands, and Jamie desperately wants to cling to her hand.

(Don’t go. I lied. I lied, please don’t let go of me.)

“I’ll be right outside,” she says to him, before smiling a watery smile at Cam. “We’ll all be back tomorrow.”

“Jamie,” Cam says, the moment the door is shut behind her. “Jamie, what…what happened?”

( _‘What happened? You were there, tell me.’_ It’s the same thing Sasha had asked, but now Jamie _has_ to answer and…..)

“You were there,” Cam whispers, voice ragged in a way that Jamie _knows_ , all too well. “How were you there?”

Jamie swallows hard a few times to try and work the words together, but all he wants is to….

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out, sharp and all too quiet. “Cam, I…I’m so sorry.”

Cam blinks, and his brow furrows. Or rather, the one that Jamie can see, furrows.

(Fuck, this all his fault!)

“What?” Cam says, and Jamie bites his lip hard because he has absolutely no _right_ to-

“Jamie, what?” Cam repeats, and Jamie shoves his glasses firmly over his eyes.

“It’s my fault he did this to you,” he says, bluntly. It’s nothing less than the truth that Cam deserves. “He almost _killed you_ , Cam, and it’s my fault.”

Cam looks…well, struck, and it’s such a shitty taste in words, but it’s as close as Jamie can get without really laying it all out, and that’s the last thing he wants right now.

“Jamie,” Cam says, forcing himself upright despite the fact he really, really shouldn’t be doing that. “Jamie, look at me.”

(He can’t. He can’t. He can’t.)

“ _Jamie_ ,” Cam insists, and Jamie is absolutely in no position to argue.

He lifts his head, just enough so he can look at Cameron, who sighs just a bit.

“Jamie,” Cam says again, softly, and Jamie jerks sharply when he realizes what Cam means.

(He still takes his glasses off, though. Still looks Cam in the eyes.)

“That’s better,” Cam says, somehow smiling despite everything.

(Despite Jamie.)

(And it’s just too much.)

“You should hate me,” Jamie bursts out, the blue of Cam’s eyes the only thing keeping him from flying out of his chair.

(He might, even with that look piercing right through him.)

Then Cam grabs Jamie’s hand and Jamie is utterly pinned.

“I don’t hate you,” Cam says quietly. Then, “I don’t hate him, either. I know everyone probably thinks I should, but…I don’t.”

(Jamie has no words. Well, Jamie has _many_ words but none that would fit with Cam’s.)

“You don’t?”

(Hate me, Jamie thinks, selfish as always. You don’t hate me?)

“How could I?” Cam says, and Jamie is unsure now if he’s referring to his father or Jamie or both or neither. “You were there.”

(Oh. Still him, then. He doesn’t deserve this.)

“Of course,” Jamie still manages to get out, swallowing again a few times to clear his throat. “I gave you the token for a reason. And wow does it suck to know that…you _needed_ it, but…I would have--”

“How?” Cam asks, and his eyes are intent when Jamie peers back up at them. “ _Tell_ _me_.”

(It’s creeping there, at the corners of Jamie’s mind. But the link is so frayed that even the ethereal has a hard time getting through, and never has Jamie been more grateful than _just_ Jamie than now.)

“I was able to channel an aspect of myself through the tether I gave you,” Jamie says, all in a rush. “I wasn’t…technically even there, physically. Just…an aspect of me was.”

“The…what?”

“That’s basically what the tethers are,” Jamie continues slowly, sinking easily into the distraction of the mythos. “It’s easier to think of them as…strings, or ties…things that link us to the people we form relationships with. But really, we’re channeling different aspects of ourselves into each tether, usually the aspect that we want to best utilize for that purpose.”

“Ties…that bind?” Cam says, and Jamie shrugs a shoulder and nods.

“More or less. Like, if I wanted to become friends with someone…theoretically, of course, I could channel an aspect of me that’s friendly and loyal and…whatever boring, normal people look for in friends, and essentially tether myself to a person through that.”

Cam blinks, trying to process, and Jamie takes a moment to let him. “What…what are some of the ties?” Cam asks.

“Secrets, information…strong emotions or feelings,” Jamie replies carefully. This is where things get….

“It’s a bit complex but usually it’s something like that. Power…that’s a big one, too. And uh…sex.”

Cam’s eyebrows go up sharply, and Jamie can feels his face flushing, ever so slightly.

“That’s another big one, and sort of ‘easy’ because it’s pretty much a guarantee that most if not all of those things come into play in some way during it. But it requires a bit of manipulation, too, and it can get… _complicated_ …when all of those things combine. Sasha’s really good at that, manipulating the tethers and people and getting the most out of anything with the least amount of backlash.”

Cam is quiet for a long moment, and Jamie fears that maybe it’s too much, but then he says, so low he can barely hear:

“Is that why you invited me over that day? You wanted to…manipulate a tether?”

(This is why he didn’t want to explain.)

“No,” Jamie says quickly, trying to resist the urge to put his glasses back on. “No, I just…I did it because I…wanted to.”

( _Wanted you_ , if he’s being honest. But he’s not, at least not in _that_ regard because he really, really doesn’t deserve it.)

“Oh,” Cam says, and he’s blushing, slightly, around the ears, and Jamie wants to kiss him.

“Yeah,” Jamie says instead, giving in to one urge and slipping his glasses back on.

“So, what did you…uh, channel, I guess? How did you…cuz you gave me a tether?”

“Not the actual thing,” Jamie assures with a wry twitch of his lips. “More a manifestation of it, something physical to represent the non-physical.”

“That’s how you hex people, isn’t it? You…’manifest something physical’?”

“Essentially,” Jamie says shortly.

(Too close. Getting too close….)

“What did you channel into the tie you gave me?” Cam asks again, and even behind the glasses once more, Jamie can’t escape the intensity of his gaze.

“Protection,” Jamie mumbles, dropping his head. “I…channeled the aspect of me that wants to protect you. And…and Cam I’m really sorry. But the voices are going to come back.”

(To say that Cam goes still would be inadequate, and also, inaccurate.)

Cam doesn’t so much freeze as he does lurch, gripping the edge of the bed rail to stabilize himself, though not before Jamie had lurched upright, too, hands catching against his shoulders and keeping him steady.

“What?” Cam says, suddenly hoarse, and Jamie is grateful for the task to keep Cam still, so he can avoid meeting his eyes again.

“The voices,” he repeats, as quietly as he can. “Which, actually, is technically just one, but they know to magnify it to effectively…it doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t….” Then Cam _does_ go still, as if realizing just how peaceful his mind really had been.

(Jamie feels for the sore, hollow space of the broken tether and begins to wrap it as tightly as he can.)

“What did you do?” Cam asks, and his voice is low, and harsh.

(Finally. _Finally_ , how it should have been all along.)

“When I created the tether, I was very clear,” Jamie explains, somehow steady despite the way his hands shake.

(He pulls at the tether and begins to work a hex, slowly, carefully. Letting it build with the weight of his anger, self-loathing, his _guilt_ , behind it.)

“Protection, like I said. It meant that you were mine, and I set it up so that your ‘friend’ so to speak, couldn’t…couldn’t feed on you. Not without going through me, first.”

Jamie is…proud, of that one, at least. It hadn’t been hard to convince Cam’s Infernal that picking a fight with the ethereal (picking a fight with _Jamie_ ) wouldn’t be worth what they inflicted on it before it could reach Cam.

“But I broke the tether,” Cam fills in, slowly, the realization dawning cruel and deliberate across his face. “And so now they’ll come back.”

“I’m sorry,” Jamie whispers, letting his hands fall from Cam’s shoulders.

(Letting the hex stew and grow and _seethe_ , well past the point of release. Until it was roaring vengeance and tearing along every nerve in Jamie’s body and setting it alight.)

“Wait,” Cam tries, shifting so he can reach a hand into his pocket. “But, I still have it.”

(Oh, Cam.)

“Do you?” Jamie says bitterly, no right to let the grief slip through. No right to feel anything other than pain and guilt and regret.

Cam’s fingers come up empty, stained with ash, and Jamie focuses even harder on the hex that is doing more than just _lingering_ now, in the back of his mind.

“So…so make another,” Cam says, determined in spite of the way he rakes his hand through his hair, wincing as his fingers scrape along bruises.

(Bruises that Jamie might as well have put there himself, for all that he did.)

“I can’t.”

(There’s a breaking point, Jamie is sure, where the hex will refuse to remain contained and just do as it will. He channels his fury and loathing and lets it stew, just a bit longer.)

“What do you mean?”

(A little more, Jamie thinks. _A little more._ )

“You broke the tether,” Jamie says, and his voice is shaking now, too. “Which means that…I can’t make another.”

“I have to,” Cam says, and Jamie grins without humor.

(Welcome to being more, Cam. I’m sorry this is where it brought you. Where _I_ brought you.)

“Well…then I’ll just--”

“No you absolutely will _not_!”

He hadn’t meant to shout, but now he can’t quite bring himself back to a lower tone, either.

“You can’t--”

“I can,” Jamie snaps sharply, and he knows if his glasses were down his eyes would likely be solid gold at this point, the weight of the ethereal behind them. “I can do that much, at least, and you aren’t in any _way_ capable of putting yourself in that position.”

“It’s my decision,” Cam argues.

“No it fucking isn’t!”

…

“Get out,” Cam says.

…

“Yeah,” Jamie says.

(And leaves.)

He ignores Sasha, pushes past the remaining semblance of reason and reaches for the broken edges of the tether. It takes the barest amount of effort to release the hex along that fractured space, given how desperately it had been fighting to escape the confines of his body. But there is nothing there, nothing to latch onto or seize, no ties to bind and Jamie _knows_ this, knows exactly how the rules work.

(Had been counting on it, really.)

The hex, when it hits, is _white_. Like… a particularly good orgasm. Or like the brightest, nigh invisible center of a flame.

(Or like _pain_ , agony, the kind that arcs through every cell and smallest atom of Jamie’s body, ripping it apart and leaving nothing left.)

And even that’s not enough, not true, because the hex is still there, seething its way into all the shattering spaces of Jamie’s fraying mind and even then it’s not enough to describe just how much it fucking _hurts_. 

(It is everything Jamie deserves.)

* * *

Somehow, Jamie makes it home.

(He’s not entirely sure how.)

Everything is disconnected, and so it takes far too long to actually reach his room, but he manages.

(Everything _hurts_ , each muscle torn and ragged as if he had been wrapped around some solid object and then crushed and even then it’s not _enough_ ….)

It takes too much effort to curl up on his bed like he wants, and less effort to sink to the floor instead, and even less to focus his intent on the ever persistent hex.

(It definitely takes more out of Jamie, this time.)

There is nothing left of the tether between him and Cam, absolutely nothing to focus on except emotion and intent, and it tears through Jamie with enough of both to leave him utterly wracked with pain.

(He very nearly loses himself completely.)

He thinks he does anyway, isn’t sure of anything _but_ pain when he comes back into himself.

His brain very nearly disconnects just from the sheer _force_ of it all, and Jamie is finding it harder and harder to find a reason why he shouldn’t let it.

(Why he shouldn’t just let the hex go, just a little father. He wouldn’t even need to push it, really, it’s already there. A little _more_ and…)

“Jamie, I’m home!”

Jamie can’t stop it when the sob comes, ripping up from deep within him and bursting awful and desperate into the air around him.

“Jamie?”

(When did she get to his door?)

(Why can’t he push just a little bit farther?)

“Are you alright?” his mom asks, and he can’t he can’t he _can’t do this_.

“No.”

“…I’m coming in.”

(He can’t bring himself to protest. He’s so spent, so… _tired_. He’s so tired, and he really just wants this to be over.)

“Jamie?”

“Cam’s in the hospital.”

He manages the words, somehow. Forces them out through lungs that want to do anything but keep breathing, through lips that are cracked and trembling.

“Cameron Solomon?” his mom says, slowly. He nods. “The one that you’re…dating?”

He laughs, at that, and it’s so _broken_ and he knows that she must hear it, hear how far gone he is, but he has to keep going…she has to _know_.

(So she can hate him, too, and he won’t feel bad about letting the hex take root.)

“It’s my fault,” he says, again. She has to know. “I kissed him.”

“That’s--”

“I kissed him, and his mom saw us, and I _knew_ that his house was dangerous, I _knew better_ , but I was stupid, and I kissed him, and his mom saw us and she told his dad and now Cam is in the hospital because he tried to kill him and _it’s my fault_!”

(There. There, it’s out. She knows. She can hate him now, and it will be alright. It’s nothing less than he deserves.)

“Jamie, I’m going to touch you now, ok?”

She does more than that. She hugs him, so tightly that his already sore muscles protest that much further. And it _hurts_ , but…in a different way this time.

(He needs to push her away. He _has_ to, he _has to_ he--)

Is crying. He’s crying, and she’s not letting go. If anything she just squeezes tighter, and Jamie is just so _tired_ of pushing everyone away.

(He holds on, even though he has no right to.)

“I’m only going to say this once, ok?” she says softly, in his ear. “And then you can decide if you want to hear it again, alright?”

(Don’t. Please don’t. Let go. Just let go.)

She pulls away, and his glasses are gone and he doesn’t know when he lost them, but she’s cupping his face like she used to when he was a kid, and her eyes which are so much like his and yet _not_ pierce into him and she’s crying now and look, he made her cry and he’s so—

“What happened is not your fault.”

(It jolts through him like the hex had, only this time it’s worse because he knows that there is nothing behind it. She is only saying exactly what is true to her, and he _can’t_ …he doesn’t have a right to accept it.)

She hugs him again before he can get a chance to tell her as much, and she doesn’t let go.

(Neither does he.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Space Oddity by David Bowie (I specifically listened to the instrumental by The Classic Rock String Quartet)  
> Exit Music (For A Film) by Radiohead  
> Ill Wind by Radiohead  
> Citizen Erased by Muse  
> Hate This, and I'll Love You by Muse
> 
> Again, I apologize. Sometimes the only way for me to process things is to just write something really dark and heavy and get it out, and I'd been meaning to get to this part of my outline eventually and was in just the right (or wrong) headspace for it. But I promise, this is as bad as it gets, and there's only going up from here.


	18. Crawling out is hard when you're not so sure it's what you want to do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That explains why it all just fell apart. 
> 
> It's not the end of the world, just you and me. 
> 
> I swear this to you, I wish that this was not the truth.
> 
> But it's something that you fell into, this choice is hard to make when you  
> are not convinced it's what you want to do.
> 
> And if a nightmare ever does unfold, perspective is a lovely hand to hold.
> 
> \- Part of It; Outro, Relient K

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recovering from a spiral is hard, but it helps when you've got a good support system in place.   
> *otherwise known as Jamie needs Better Coping Mechanisms 2: Electric Boogaloo.* 
> 
> Warnings for this chapter include ANGST; hints at dysphoria; mental health issues such as depression and anxiety; references to self-harm and suicidal thoughts; as well as references to child abuse. 
> 
> Nothing too graphic or explicit, but it's there. Stay safe and enjoy! 
> 
> *I also included some easter eggs..see if you can pick 'em out ;P*

**Jamie**

Their mom is careful with them, after the break.

But not in the way that most would be, tiptoeing around or trying to pretend that nothing had happened. No, she’s careful in that she comes into their room the first thing the next day, and sits on their bed, and waits until Jamie looks at her before laying it all out.

One; she’s calling their therapist every day. Jamie doesn’t have to talk to him if they don’t want to, but she’s going to be calling him regardless.

(It’s the new one, from Aff’s therapists’ office, and he’s kind of great, actually, but still. It’s the principle of the thing.)

Two; Jamie can do this for as long as they like, and she’ll support them if that’s what they need, but she’s not going to let them wallow, whatever that might mean.

(Jamie thinks their mom doesn’t get that they’re _quite_ good at wallowing, when they want to be.)

Three; they have to talk to her.

“That one’s not an option,” she’d said, and she had absolutely nothing _more_ to back up her words, but it was the look in her eyes and the determination in her voice that seals it.

(Because that’s just what they do, the two of them. They _talk_ , and Jamie is already feeling like this isn’t going to be as easy as they’d hoped.)

The tether is gone completely now, between them and Cam, and Jamie keeps poking at the hollow space as if they could _will_ it back into existence.

The ever-present ethereal is gone, too, for now; utterly spent during Jamie’s…they’re not sure what it was. They don’t know if it counts as a…an _attempt_. The intent was there, but…well, they try not to think too hard about it. A moment of weakness. It’s rare, but Jamie is now forced to acknowledge the limits of being _more_ and remembering what it was like to just…be.

(It sucks.)

They haven’t talked to the rest of the group, and it’s been…two days? Maybe. Since the hospital.

(Their mom had admitted reluctantly, when Jamie had pressed, that they were finding it difficult at the station to turn this into a case.)

Turns out, there’s no laws against disciplining a child however one sees fit, and no set definition for just what constitutes ‘abuse’ when it comes to that. Some would argue that striking a child with a hand was fine, but using an object was not, while on the opposite side, any kind of physical discipline was acceptable. Jamie thinks that this counts as a little more than just ‘discipline’ and if they were in the right frame of mind, they could think of so many ways to influence things.

But they can’t, because they’d already fucked up enough.

(And they’d forgotten. Four; at least once a day, their mom would remind them that it wasn’t their fault.)

(Jamie thinks that remains to be seen.)

And so the law was in question, now, but with Mr. Solomon’s influence and power and money, and the lack of a testimony from Cam, there wasn’t much to be done. Never mind the fact that Jamie _knows_ that at least four of the cops in the Cinderbrush precinct were aware of what Mr. Solomon had done. Knows that number is exact, too, because they had watched, unseen and useless when they’d finally arrive at the house.

(Knows because it had taken those four cops to get Mr. Solomon away from Cam. Two to pull the man back and keep him away, and two to wedge themselves in front to guard Cam.)

And shit, they’re spiraling again.

Jamie forces themself to get up, and debates a moment before ultimately just dragging the soft blanket off the top of the bed and taking it with them. They manage to get to the sofa downstairs, at least, and curls up there and listens idly as their mom works on dinner. She notices them immediately, and they don’t have the energy to keep up any pretenses.

“Jamie?”

“Couldn’t think, came down here,” Jamie says shortly, in lieu of anything more coherent. But she understands anyway, because she’s like that, and she doesn’t push, which they’re grateful for. They flip idly through T.V. channels until dinner’s almost ready, and they’re debating how much they want to actively participate in that when their phone chimes.

(Which is impossible, because they’d turned it off as soon as they’d been aware enough to.)

It’s Sasha.

_Where are you?_

It’s so familiar, and Jamie curls tighter on the sofa, decidedly not hungry.

_Busy._

_Too busy to be here for Cam?_

(She’s not wrong. She’s so not wrong and this is why they’d turned their phone off.)

They ignore her, but they can’t ignore the guilt that is now rapidly creeping in. They should have just stayed upstairs. They could probably just go back up, but the thought of moving is too much effort, never mind _actually_ physically moving, and so Jamie pulls the blanket over their head and just lays there, for a bit.

“Oh no,” their mom says blandly, and from the sound of her voice, she’s sitting on the arm of the couch. “The sofa has swallowed my child, whatever shall I do?”

Jamie snorts, in spite of themself, but doesn’t lift the blanket. There’s the soft click of silverware, and the muffled murmuring from the T.V.

“What’s it gonna be tonight?” she asks, and they don’t know if she’s asking about the T.V. or about their state of mind, and doesn’t really feel like answering either way.

“You have to give me something,” she says, and the T.V. volume lowers. “That was the deal, Jamie.”

(Oh. Darn. Let’s go back to T.V. options. That’s much easier than the utter mess that is Jamie’s psyche right now.)

“Kids on bikes,” they mumble.

(Those kids always got out of the shit they were thrust into, and they didn’t even have anything _more_ about them. Or maybe they did, and that was how they kept surviving long enough for three seasons. That was a thought. Let’s talk about that, if the kids on bikes had special abilities and if so, what kind.)

“Jamie,” she sighs, but the T.V.’s muffled noise takes on the distinct synth-y sounds and youthful squawks of 80’s archetype children on bikes.

(And now they just feel worse. She’s trying so hard, and here they are giving her shit, and forcing her to work from home and making her deal with them and _fuck_ they’re spiraling so hard right now!)

Jamie sits up sharply, and the cooler air of the house is definitely not the reason they shiver, and forces themself to slide over on the sofa. Their mom plops into the space immediately, and Jamie doesn’t know how to _ask_ and they haven’t even needed this shit since they were a kid, but there’s no other option.

They lean over, just a little, and she immediately puts her plate on the floor and wraps them in a hug and it’s just a little _too_ tight and it’s perfect.

“Do you think…,” Jamie starts, then tries again, mumbling the words into her shoulder so they vibrate oddly through their jaw and ears. “Do you think you could call Dr. Mercer?”

And so she calls their therapist, and Jamie talks to him for a bit, and then they hang up and talk to their mom for a bit more, and then she hugs them again, and restarts Kids on Bikes from the beginning, and Jamie starts to feel just a little better.

(Aff doesn’t text, they just show up.)

Jamie blinks, not quite sure if Aff is angry or not, and not quite sure if they want them to be.

“Get in the car,” Aff says, in lieu of a proper greeting.

Jamie glances back at the T.V. clock, ignoring their mom who is _definitely not listening in_.

“It’s almost ten,” they say, and Aff stares.

“The hell? Get dressed, and _get in the car_ , Jamie.”

(Definitely angry, then.)

“No,” Jamie says, and steps out onto the tiny front porch, closing the door behind them.

“No?” Aff repeats, and steps closer, and Jamie _really_ needs to stop forgetting how tall they are. “Do you have any idea how selfish you’re being right now? Cam is in the fucking hospital right now and you’re just… _sitting here_?”

They’re right of course, Jamie is being absolutely selfish, and a part of Jamie wants to run screaming to avoid the intensity of Aff’s eyes.

(The other part wants to see if they can push Aff enough to actually hit them. They look angry enough. Maybe…)

“Like I said, I’ve been busy,” Jamie snaps, and regrets not putting on their glasses before walking out.

“I can tell,” Aff spits, and Jamie can’t hide the way they flinch.

The way they want to _yank_ on a tether that they still can’t quite reach, how they want to force Aff’s attention, want to tell them exactly what they’d almost done, just to see how much it would _hurt_.

(If it would hurt.)

“Anything else you wanted?” Jamie asks, cutting their eyes away, shifting back against the door to the house. 

(Like they’re not dying to ask how Cam is. Like they’re utterly disinterested and not a few more words away from leaping into Aff’s truck, still running, there in the driveway.)

“No,” Aff says, disgust etched into every feature. “No I guess not. Call me when you’ve pulled your head out of your ass.”

And then they’re gone, and Jamie makes it back inside the house before it hits them.

(And everything’s just a little _too much_ and they don’t even know if they actually make it back to the sofa before they start screaming or if the floor had simply given away beneath them.)

* * *

Sasha shows up at Jamie’s the next morning, and it’s already going to be a _day_ , Jamie knows. Can feel it when they wake up and everything feels just a little off, like the whole world just shifted, ever so slightly to the left.

(Jamie _hates_ these days.)

When their body just doesn’t want to match up to their brain no matter what they wear or the color of their nails or the shade of their glasses, and their brain responds by simply _disconnecting_ from everything entirely.

Normally, they’d just get high, but their stash had to be relocated after That Night and as they hadn’t exactly left the house in a bit….

(Today was just going to have to suck.)

It doesn’t help that the ethereal was starting to come back. Jamie was kind of getting used to just _being_ , for once, instead of being _more_.

“What exactly are you doing, Jamie?” Sasha says, and Jamie sighs and tries to remember how this worked.

“Good morning,” they say, as brightly as they can manage, eyeing Sasha over the rim of their glasses. “I’ve got coffee or tea. At least, I’m hoping you’re just here for breakfast, but knowing you--”

“ _Jamie_.”

Oh. That’s a pull. They’d almost forgotten.

“I’ve been working on some things,” Jamie says, trying not to show how much it was affecting them.

(Failing, most certainly. This was Sasha, after all, and she’d always been too good at _seeing_ them.)

“Cameron’s been asking for you.”

(She’s on a roll, and it’s really, really not fair.)

“He said to tell you he’s sorry,” she continues, icily, as Jamie tries to focus on buttering toast and not the way their hands shake. “But if anything, I’d say he’s not the one who needs to apologize.”

“I’ve got plans today,” Jamie says tightly, giving up on the butter. Dry toast wasn’t so bad.

(It’s terrible. Absolutely horrid.)

“Do those plans include being a shitty partner? Because right now, you’re being a really _shitty_ partner, Jamie.”

Are they?

(They are. Absolutely.)

But… _are they_?

(If they’re just trying to keep themselves in one piece. For once.)

“Are you done telling me shit I already know, or were you just here to rub it in my face?” Jamie snaps, crumbs dropping dully onto the table as they turn on Sasha. “I _know_ , ok? I know I’m an utter disgrace, the last thing I need is a reminder from _you_ , of all things.”

“If you don’t need a reminder then what the hell are you doing?” Sasha spits, and Jamie focuses on tearing the toast into smaller pieces to keep from looking at her. “What are you doing, Jamie, because I just don’t get it. If you really cared about any of us…about _Cam_ , then you--”

“Shut. Up.”

She does.

Jamie hadn’t been expecting her to, and then they realize.

(Oh. Right. So that’s how that goes again.)

“If you don’t have anything productive to say,” Jamie continues, coldly, quietly. “Get out.”

(She does try, Jamie’s gotta give her credit for that.)

Then she’s gone.

Jamie throws their coffee mug at the door behind her.

* * *

The hospital is, technically, too far to scooter.

(Technically.)

The staff takes one look at Jamie as they stumble into the ground floor lobby and then decides unanimously that no, they don’t really want to deal with this.

(Which is fine, because Jamie doesn’t really want to deal with Jamie, either.)

But the top floor is still waiting.

_Cam_ is still waiting.

Jamie is tempted, for a moment, to take the stairs, just to try and drag things out more. Then they realize that that’s still entirely selfish…just their _being_ here is selfish. Never mind that Cam had been asking for them, which, really. Really, he shouldn’t have. But for Jamie to actually _come_ , despite rational sense, solely for the purpose of…things that they didn’t deserve.

(Selfish, utterly. Hoping for forgiveness.)

The elevator deposits them on the top floor far too quickly, and shit maybe they _should_ have taken the stairs. It’s too late for that now, too late to turn back. And so Jamie moves forward, and definitely doesn’t shake when they grab the door handle. Definitely doesn’t hesitate, a moment too long, before actually opening the door and stepping in.

Aff is tucked tightly into the space between the guard rail and Cam’s hip when Jamie enters. Sasha is sitting on the opposite side of the bed in a chair, but she flies instantly to her feet when she’s catches sight of them, lingering in the doorway like an intruder.

“Jamie,” she says, and it’s surprise and hesitation all at once.

(None of the morning’s anger, which Jamie had half been expecting.)

Jamie can’t decide if it’s better or worse that way.

Cam shifts with some difficulty due to Aff refusing to move, but makes into an upright position.

“Hey,” he says, and he’s still so painfully bright. “Hey, it’s good to see you.”

“About time you got here,” Aff says, and there’s the anger.

“Aff,” Sasha says quietly, but by the look on her face, Jamie judges she’d probably only been moments away from saying it herself.

(Which is fine, really. It’s not wrong. It’s--)

“Guys,” Cam mutters, and they both fall silent, and Jamie hovers there in the doorway.

Until Sasha rolls her eyes and moves, and they don’t quite know how, but now they’re sitting in what was once her seat, on the opposite side of Cam and directly across from Aff. Who glares at Jamie, ever so slightly, with those ocean-blue eyes of theirs that are starting to turn dark, just a little, around the edges.

“Should we?” Sasha says, and Jamie starts because wait, that wasn’t part of the plan and they can’t do this again.

But Cam nods anyway, and Aff gets up reluctantly with a passing growl of warning and a flash of dark eyes in Jamie’s direction.

But they still _leave_ , and Jamie fidgets in the chair by Cam’s bedside, running the edges of their nails together until the paint starts to chip and their rings click together.

“Jamie,” Cam starts.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Jamie cuts in before he can finish. “I’m…sorry for not coming sooner. You have every reason to hate me right now and I get it, I do, just…could we not. Could we not…do this today?”

“Do what?” Cam asks, and Jamie winces as one of the rings catches the edge of their skin. “Jamie? What do you…oh.”

_It’s no more than you deserve_ , Jamie reminds themself.

“Jamie,” Cam says slowly, and they can’t help but flinch at his tone of voice. They don’t want to look up to see it in his eyes, too. “Jamie, I told you before and I meant it…I don’t hate you.”

“You-”

“Let me _finish_ ,” Cam cuts in, this time, just a bit sharp.

(When he says it like that, Jamie really has no choice.)

“I don’t blame you for this,” Cam continues, low and intent. “I was a little upset, when you didn’t come back, but then I realized that was probably partially my fault.”

“What?” Jamie says, head snapping up before they can help it. “Cam, if anything….”

“How about we both agree we were a little stressed out at the time and said shit we didn’t mean to say?” Cam says finally, and Jamie can’t believe it.

(Can’t believe Cam’s letting them off that easy.)

“I can’t…you can’t just…”

“Just what?”

(You can’t possibly just forgive me…just like that.)

Cam reaches out suddenly, and Jamie almost flinches but catches it in time, as Cam grabs Jamie’s hand in his and squeezes tight.

“Hey,” he says, far too softly. “You didn’t really think I’d let you go that easily, did you?”

And for a second, Jamie’s stomach clenches in anticipation. And then Cam says

“Jamie. We’re _connected_ …more than that. Do you have any idea how much you mean to me?”

And fuck, that’s not at all what they’d been expecting.

“Damn it,” Jamie says thickly, and they want to swipe a hand across their face to clear the _traitorous_ tears, but that would mean letting go of Cam.

Cam chuckles gently and draws his hand across Jamie’s face, fingertips just brushing the edge of their glasses so that for a _second_ everything is _bright and color and Cam_.

“Damn it,” Jamie hisses again.

And then Cam is kissing them, and in that instant, Jamie can almost start to believe that things are going to be ok again.

(And then the cops show up. Because of fucking _course_ they do.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything in it's right place by Radiohead
> 
> Part of it/Outro by Relient K
> 
> Everything I wanted by Billie Eilish
> 
> Two Birds by Regina Spektor


	19. I'll believe it all (there's nothing I won't understand)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two birds on a wire
> 
> One tries to fly away and the other...
> 
> \- Two Birds, Regina Spektor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope ya'll are doing well and continuing to stay safe and sane in this madness we call the world. 
> 
> I tried a couple different things this chapter, hopefully it still reads well for you guys. Congrats to you who figured out the Easter Eggs in the last chapter: Matt Mercer cameoing as Jamie's new therapist; as well as Kids on Bikes, which is a TTRPG in the theme of kids on bikes combating supernatural occurrences in urban/suburban settings, and which the CR cast featured in back when Geek and Sundry played and aired it. (It also doubled as a Stranger Things reference, so kudos!) 
> 
> Anyway, important notes for this chapter: **This chapter features teenagers having sex!! Also features discussions about sex, implied and referenced dubious consent as well as explicit consent and discussions about dysphoria.** This chapter also features discussions about homophobia, child abuse/violence, and includes references and (non graphic) flashbacks to said abuse.
> 
> Nothing too explicit or graphic, but I tried to handle everything as tastefully and respectfully as I could. Stay safe, and I hope you all enjoy!

**Cameron**

It’s not that Cam had forgotten how much the hospital sucked, it’s just…he’d forgotten how much _being in_ the hospital sucked. He’d only ever been in once before, briefly, when he’d torn a muscle back at the start of football season. There’d been a panicked moment where they’d thought it would be the end of his hopes for a career, and then…well.

(It had been the second time he’d _asked_ for something.)

He’d recovered just in time for playoffs. Only for playoffs to be cancelled due to a steroid related controversy surrounding the opposing school.

(That’s how Cam had learned about the costs of asking.)

Never mind the fact that his first ask had been help finding a car. He’d gotten his car, (and _damn_ what a car!) except it had been missing some crucial parts (like the fucking _engine_ ) and it had taken him pretty much the entire summer just to get it running.

(And then his dad had decided to confiscate the keys until Cam got his grades up.)

So. While Cam is aware of how much the hospital sucked, he knew better now than to ask for a way out.

(And also, this whole thing was entirely his fault.)

He knows Jamie had been blaming themselves, knows how much pain and worry he’d put his group through. But really, it was Cam’s own fault. He’d known better, known the risks associated with having _anyone_ at his house, but _especially_ Jamie and _especially_ on what had then been a school night. His dad was usually always home earlier on school nights, and so his mom was always on high alert and all over Cam and his shit.

And he’d been stupid, and selfish and greedy (and horny, maybe. Just a little) and had just wanted something for himself for once. Had wanted what little play at normal he could get.

(Which is of course, how his mom ended up seeing him and Jamie together.)

Because Cam had been _distracted_ , and had left his door open.

(The look on her face, though. Was kinda priceless.)

And then the panic had set in, because the scandalized shock on her face had quickly turned to that tight, pinched look she got whenever Cam had done something _wrong_ ; something for his dad to hear about.

(She’d said as much, after ‘politely’ kicking Jamie out. _When your father finds out…_ )

It’s bitterly ironic that despite…well. Everything. Cam had never truly felt _scared_ of his dad.

Wary, and apprehensive, sure. Mindful of his whims and his anger and his fists, when things got bad. But there were always limits, always a threshold.

The police…That Night. That had been one moment where Cam had truly been afraid.

(And this…hearing _that_ from his mom. That had been another.)

Cam had thought he’d be sick with the force of it, his fear. Because if there was one thing of all the shit teenage things that Cam had pulled…if there was _one thing_ that was going to be the limit, it was this.

“You _can’t_ ,” Cam had said, and she’d pursed her lips and given him that look, and he still didn’t know if he hated her or pitied her.

That she’d thought she had no other choice. That she’d cared more about his dad’s shitty opinions than Cam’s feelings. (Than Cam’s safety.)

The funny thing was, his dad hadn’t even believed her at first. Like it was so _out there_ , so surreal that it was impossible to think.

“Cam was kissing a boy.”

She’d said it fast, all but spitting the words. In hindsight, Cam thinks that maybe she’d been just as scared as he was.

He’d been shaking, at the dinner table, such a wreck he couldn’t even enjoy the loaf his mom had made. It was his favorite, a hamloaf vs. the traditional meatloaf, with the pineapple gravy that only she could make taste just like the diner’s. It had taken everything just to sip his water, and even that had been impossible when she’d said it.

And his dad had just paused, blinking over his own plate at her, not even comprehending.

“What?”

And Cam had thought that he should run, he should get up and run right then, but that would have surely just made it worse.

“I caught your son,” his mom had said, then, eyes darting almost desperately to Cam. Like he could go back in time and make it not true. “Kissing…a boy.”

She’d paused, right before settling on ‘a boy,’ and Cam thinks it’s self-preservation at its finest because really, there’s no telling what would have happened if she had said _kissing Jamie Wrenly._

As it was, Cam remembers feeling numb, fear undefinable, sheer nausea and adrenaline keeping him afloat and only just barely at that.

As his dad had paused some more, and blinked. And stared, and not understood. Until Cam had whispered “Dad,” and then he’d shot straight up from his seat.

Cam had _flown_ back from his, kicking off from the table in a desperate bid for _distance_ , which had been far too rapidly closed. He’s not sure if he’d managed to get his hands up at all, if he’d been able to spill out more than a few desperate pleas.

(He does remember, about halfway through what he _could_ remember of it, that he had shoved the token from Jamie in his pocket before going down to dinner.)

He’d barely been aware enough to grab it, but he had, and wound it desperately between his shaking fingers, wrenching with barely enough force to snap the leather. He doesn’t remember if he’d screamed Jamie’s name or sobbed it, only that everything seemed to blur around him, like he existed only in this insular bubble of agony.

And then the bubble had shattered, not popped, and dimly he recalled Jamie _being there_ , without warning and without explanation and absolutely with no inhibition.

(He’s still not sure he _wants_ to know what Jamie had done.)

After that, Cam’s memory goes blurry. He can’t bring himself to focus in on the details, on the police or the ambulance or the hospital.

(He can _feel_ the details; in every shift of movement and wrong intake of breath, just what had been done to him. What his _dad_ had done to him.)

But he can’t hate him.

(Cam thinks maybe that’s what’s the worst of all, about this.)

He thinks maybe the cops are disappointed in him, for that. Knows that Sasha is disappointed and Aff is furious and Jamie is…resigned. But the cops…they’re disappointed and there’s a pity in it, like they just _know_ , and Cam thinks that that’s not fair. That they can’t just come in here like this, not when he’d just gotten Jamie back, dammit. They can’t just come in here and give him those looks and ask him things that are just gateways to picking apart his entire life.

Because he knows that’s how it’s going to go. Knows that’s what they’re aiming for, more than that, knows that they’re probably just as eager to see the Solomon name brought down as it is that they actually care about what had happened to him.

(Cam almost _asks_ , when the cops show up, is the thing. Almost asks the Infernal to make them go away.)

It’s so stupid, and childish.

Instead, Cam had held himself back, and endured the looks and had answered “I don’t know,” to everything.

(‘Do you have any idea why he might have done this?’)

That one, though. That one had been harder to say 'I don’t know' to. Because Cam thinks that he _does_ know, on a surface level, but also…he’d been kind of hoping to ask his dad that, himself.

* * *

**Sasha**

Sasha will be the first to say that she knows how to handle situations, when they come up. Knows how to manipulate and twist and _pull_. Had been doing it even before the Other had come into play, had been taught the fine art of working people since she was a child.

She’d be the first to say that something as simple as changing a mind shouldn’t be a difficult task.

Unless the mind is Cam’s.

(Or Jamie’s, but…that was an entirely _different_ sort of situation.)

This, though. This, Sasha just can’t understand.

“What do you mean you didn’t tell them anything?”

Cam looks at her and then skirts his eyes away again with a wince. He’s looking better, at least. The worst of the bruising around his face is gone, all the breaks and fractures sealed up neatly. The doctors had been impressed and relieved with the healing, and hadn’t bothered to question it too far outside their normal parameters.

(She doesn’t know whether to curse their human stupidity or be thankful for it.)

(Doesn’t know how much any of them count for human, anymore.)

“I just…I couldn’t,” Cam says lamely, and Aff growls softly from the window and Jamie presses their lips tightly together by the wall. “It felt like….”

“Only you could be concerned about it being a betrayal,” Jamie snaps, and the words are harsh but their tone is not entirely unkind. “Cam…he doesn’t deserve that from you.”

(The thing is, she should have seen it.)

She had known from the start that Cam’s dad was…far from ideal. Knows that even _that_ is putting it lightly. Knows about the anger, and the bruises that Cam had, at the time, been able to pass off as merely fights with one of the guys on the football team. Or a slip in practice. Or any number of things other than the truth, that Sasha believed only because to consider otherwise was unbearable.

(But she’d known, too. That was the thing. She’d known.)

“You have no idea how badly I want to break into the police station right now,” Aff says darkly, and Jamie looks over with a slight twitch of their lips.

“I know the best times we could do it,” they offer. “I have a key.”

“Guys,” Cam says softly. “That’s not…you don’t have to do that.”

“And you don’t have to protect him, yet here we are,” Jamie retorts, and Cam flinches slightly.

“Look,” she says, because she has to say something. Has to _do_ something. “I understand the whole ‘family obligation’ thing, really, I do. But Cam…he broke that the first time he hit you.”

Cam’s expression twists sharply in misery, and Aff growls curses under their breath, and Jamie hums thoughtfully and twists their bracelet around their arm.

“Not only that, but you only have a few days,” they say bluntly. “It’s not going to stick without you, never mind what they have.”

“What do you mean?” Aff asks, and Jamie sighs heavily.

“I mean, that the police are going to let Mr. Solomon go at the end of the week, probably before that, and the hospital is letting Cam out next week, and there’s nothing that I can _do about it_.”

They sound furious. (They sound terrified, and Sasha can’t say that she blames them.)

“Can we talk about something else. Please?” Cam says from the bed.

And so they talk about the Winter Formal, and how the school had tiptoed around the idea of banning them from attending due to the controversy surrounding That Night before ultimately deciding it wasn’t worth the backlash that might come about. Instead, they’re able to go ‘with supervision’ which essentially just means that Jamie’s mom gets to tag along “in the field”- Jamie’s words- and ultimately make them all uncomfortable. They talk about coordinating colors, maybe, which would be fine except it also brings up the inevitable ‘what even are we to each other’ that they still hadn’t properly addressed.

(Which, really, is an entirely _other_ thing that Sasha should be able to handle except, well. She can’t.)

What she can do is drop Aff and Jamie off at their respective houses on her own way home, and so she does. She’s not sure what it is that drives the domesticity of it, how a part of her _wants this_ , wants to hold onto all of this with everything she has. If it’s that strange wanting that has her trailing after Jamie when they get to their house.

Jamie quirks a brow but doesn’t question it, flips on some lights in the homey kitchen that sits in such stark contrast to Sasha’s own polished, pristine (empty) one.

“You’re making coffee?” she says, unable to keep the skepticism out of her voice.

Jamie’s hands shake, but their every movement is precise and intentional as they scoop out the grounds into the machine and retrieve a mug from the cabinet, cupping it as if there were already something hot inside.

“Do you want some, or are you just judging?” they chirp, eyeing her over the mug.

She glances at the clock on the microwave behind Jamie’s shoulder, the neon blinking slowly past ten o’clock.

“It’s late,” she notes, shifting back on her heels casually.

“I have projects to work on,” Jamie chirps, nonplussed.

The way they hover over the word ‘projects’ tells Sasha exactly what she needs to know. It also sparks the thought in her head, that she can think of some other projects that Jamie could work on, instead. She nearly says it, nearly gives into the urge to shift forward and pin Jamie against the wall there, in the tiny kitchen.

Jamie snorts, and Sasha blinks and realizes that she had, in fact, said some of that out loud.

“You just don’t stop, do you?” they murmur, and when they bring the mug up to their lips it’s actually filled with coffee, this time.

(Well. Sasha thinks. In for a penny, and all.)

She surges forward, and the sharp noise of surprise Jamie makes is overtaken quickly by an even sharper hiss as Sasha adjusts their position and pins them to the wall. One of her hands goes up to cup the side of Jamie’s face, fingers just trailing the edge of their lips. The other wanders lower, the pad of her thumb just teasing along the soft waistband of Jamie’s pants.

There is a soft click, of the coffee mug startling from Jamie’s hands and to the counter. Sasha's fingers shift as Jamie swallows hard, lips parting ever so slightly and eyes flickering behind their glasses. She takes the opportunity to replace her hand with her mouth, and the noise Jamie makes when she kisses them is _wonderful_. She lets her hand wander down to join the other, and is just starting to slip towards the clasp at Jamie’s waist.

Jamie flinches, and the kiss is broken with a sharp upward jerk of their chin, a shaky shove, and an even sharper _pull_ that has Sasha taking an extra step back to catch her balance again. She feels it as a cold tingle at the back of her neck and then a white hot burst that stabs straight through her skull.

(And, if she’s being honest, low in her gut, as well.)

“That,” Jamie pants, eyes bright and solid gold. “Was entirely uncalled for.”

“I could say the same,” Sasha snaps, unable to hide the wince at the fresh spike of warning that meets her words. “You didn’t exactly stop me, though, did you?”

(It’s true. Or, at least partly.)

If Jamie had truly objected to the kiss (to her being there), they would have certainly done something by now. They’d never hesitated in the past to make clear at every opportunity just how disinterested they were whenever Sasha would attempt even the slightest bit of flirting.

Jamie laughs, and the sound is short and sharp, accompanied by another white hot _pull._ “At the risk of sounding utterly pretentious, you underestimate my power.”

Despite the still very present warning of the ethereal in her ear, Sasha can’t help but smirk, just a little.

“And I suppose next you’ll say that you have the high ground,” she murmurs.

The grin Jamie shoots her is thrilling in just how _dangerous_ it is, and it takes everything to keep from moving forward again.

“Jamie,” she says with a pout, drawing their name out in a whine.

Jamie shudders hard and glares with the weight of the ethereal in their eyes.

“Say my name like that again,” they snarl lowly.

The warning helps, still white hot and fierce in the back of her mind.

(She still tenses, ever so slightly. Still inhales in preparation.)

“Try. It.” Jamie says, enunciating sharply.

( _Try me_.)

“Tell me to stop,” Sasha says instead, and the white fades abruptly from her subconscious.

“What,” Jamie says, blinking the gold from their eyes.

“Tell me to stop,” Sasha repeats, softer but no less intense, stepping forward into Jamie’s space again.

Their mouth curls like they’d tasted something sour, face twisting sharply with the force of their disbelief. Sasha lets her hands wander on their own again, and her fingers play at one of the buttons on Jamie’s shirt, just skirting the edge of their hips. Jamie jerks again, their tongue darting out to skirt across their lips.

“Stop.”

It’s hoarse, and almost desperate.

( _Nowhere near convincing_, the Other tries to whisper in Sasha’s ear.)

She stops, hands stilling at Jamie’s sides. Jamie, for their part, startles almost as badly as if she’d kept going. They pull away towards the counter once more, and Sasha lets them.

( _Wants_ , desperately. To pull them back, to—)

“Fucking shit,” Jamie hisses, and Sasha looks up to see that they’d gotten their hands around the coffee mug again, and made no attempts to actually drink it. “You’re something, you know that?”

“I’ve been told,” she purrs, and Jamie swears hoarsely again before setting down the coffee with another sharp click.

“Upstairs,” Jamie rasps, and then they’re on the move.

Jamie’s room is somehow everything Sasha had been expecting and yet, also not. She’s distracted from the insistence of the Other by the dreamcatcher hanging from one of Jamie’s bookshelves. She feels her breath catch in her throat, and is clenching her hands into tight fists even before Jamie snaps

“Don’t touch it.”

“Are you seriously _telling_ _me_?” she hisses back, eyes wide and taking in the intricate patterns along the edge of the weave. “How the hell do you even have this, Jamie?”

“You…know what it is,” Jamie says blandly, surprise evident in their face.

She shakes her head in disbelief, and even the Other is stunned enough into silence. She leans closer, hands firmly clenched to resist the surging desire to _touch it_ , taking in the patterns and the colored beads and noting the very specific way they seem to be weaving together to cover a gap near the very center.

“Is this Cam?” she whispers, gesturing without touching.

Jamie’s lips purse tightly, their jaw clenched, and she takes it as confirmation. She sees her own pattern, surprisingly not too far off the center. Aff is closer; not as close as Cam, who is all but encompassing the center. But she’s not on the fringes, where she’d been expecting, more than that, not simply a colored dot on the elaborate pattern.

(This, she knows with certainty, was Jamie’s project.)

“How?” she asks again, and Jamie grins that dangerous grin again.

“I may or may not have tampered with the general course of things,” they say lightly. “There was nothing saying I _couldn’t_ , so…I did.”

(Sasha thought it wasn’t possible for her to _want_ any more than she already did and yet, here she was.)

She glances back at the dreamcatcher, and the still-healing space where all the threads making up Cam should have been.

“You know you can just resolve this the easy way?” she says, and Jamie loses that pleased look and glares tightly.

“I don’t want to do it the easy way,” they say, and Sasha wants to protest, but decides better against it.

“And anyway,” Jamie continues, only slightly less stiffly. “I’m sure you can think of something better to do than criticize my fucking with the fates.”

“Only if you’re offering,” Sasha replies, as coyly as she can manage with the Other stirring excitement in her stomach.

(Or maybe, she’s just excited. It’s always hard to tell, these days. They’re nearly one and the same.)

Jamie huffs a sharp noise of exasperation, but they slide their rings off their fingers and the hat from their head and the cloak from their shoulders, and Sasha absolutely can not stand to simply _watch_ anymore. She moves, and Jamie makes another startled noise before her hands go over theirs, halting the progress they’d been making on their shirt.

“Let me,” she whispers, and Jamie sucks a sharp breath and looks like they’re going to protest, so she kisses them to convince them otherwise.

(She regrets it, immediately.)

“Sorry,” Jamie murmurs, not looking it at all. “Force of habit.”

“You could have said no,” she snaps tightly through her teeth, barely keeping herself from retaliating in kind.

“I did,” Jamie says cheekily, and they have the nerve to smirk at her.

Sasha gives in to that base urge and shoves Jamie back against the wall. The dreamcatcher brushes lazily across their cheek before she kisses them again sharply, hands moving of their own accord to divest Jamie of their shirt, fingers undoing buttons faster than Jamie’s hands can move to slow her.

(Not that she would have been slowed, at that point.)

She can feel the cold tickle at the back of her neck again, but she wraps the influence of the tether around herself and _pulls_ back. Jamie shudders hard and relents, (not like she’d given much of a choice) and Sasha indulges in running her hands across Jamie’s chest, dragging her nails down their sternum with just enough force to make them hiss, before working further down once more. Her mouth is on the juncture of Jamie’s throat, and so she _feels_ the whimper before she hears it, high and plaintive, even as Jamie’s own hands come up to grasp for the back of her neck.

“Sasha,” they gasp, short and desperate. “Sasha, _please._ ”

It’s the please that catches her attention, or, no. It’s the please that drives the Other’s attention, has it all but purring with exhilaration and spurring her ever onward. It’s the way that it comes out of Jamie’s mouth that catches *her* attention specifically, because for all that Sasha has known them, Jamie _never_ begs.

“Please,” they say again, and she shifts back with only a slight hesitation.

(It’s almost a shame; she’s pretty sure that spot on Jamie’s neck had been about to bruise beautifully.)

As it is, she pulls back, and it’s as she does that she notices Jamie is shaking. More than that, can feel it, can see something bright and panicked in their eyes and a twist almost like pain on their face.

(And fuck, that’s not right. This was supposed to be _fun_. Jamie’s not doing this right at all.)

“Jamie?” she says, and they inhale sharp and shaky, and she can feel their hands fumble for her own.

“Just,” they bite out between breaths. “Not there…I…not there, please?”

She realizes where her hands are, but she can’t quite make sense of the problem.

(It is, objectively speaking, very hard to make someone orgasm without touching them.)

Not that Sasha didn’t have her ways, of course. But that was beside the current point. The current point being that one of her hands had found the inside of Jamie’s thigh, while the other had been stabilizing on the edge of Jamie’s hip.

(And that one was the problem, according to the tight pain/panic on Jamie’s face and the tremble in their hands as their fingers finally curl around Sasha’s wrist.)

“Not…not there,” they say again. And then it hits, and Sasha feels like a terrible human being again.

(She is also entirely and unfairly aroused, and it takes effort to force perspective when she wants nothing more than to—)

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs quickly, letting Jamie guide her hands back to safer territory. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

“Fine,” Jamie says tightly, then exhales sharp and tries again. “It’s fine…I wasn’t expecting it either, just…give me a second?”

It comes out like another plea, and the fact that Jamie thought that they had to beg permission from her—

(That’s not right. That’s not how this is supposed to go at all.)

“Take your time,” Sasha murmurs lowly. “I can wait.”

The surprise on Jamie’s face is worth the pang of guilt and regret it brings. Worth it, definitely, when Jamie finally catches their breath a few moments later and nods, and Sasha brings her mouth back to that spot on their neck and sucks hard enough that they nearly lose it again.

“Not fair,” Jamie breathes in her ear, their fingers grasping tightly to the back of her neck. “It’s not fair how good you are at that.”

“Just you wait,” she replies, reveling in the way they groan when her fingers pinch at their chest.

“Is that a promise?”

(It was.)

They end up on the bed, somehow.

(Or maybe it’s less the somehow as it is the fact.)

Sasha kisses her way down Jamie’s neck, sucking hard at the hollow of their throat until Jamie whines and their nails dig into the base of her skull.

“Stop that,” they pant, entirely breathless as she moves further down. “My collars only go so high.”

“That’s a shame,” she murmurs lightly, nipping at their collarbone.

Jamie groans, and it’s exasperated for all of the two seconds that it takes Sasha’s mouth to reach their stomach.

“Wait, wait,” they manage, and she pauses on her way further down, trying to figure out the problem.

 _There shouldn’t **be** a problem_, the Other hisses, impatient as ever. Shouldn’t be any hesitation, any obstacle to getting what they wanted.

Sasha tells it to shut up. This is more important than that. _Jamie_ is more important than that. She waits, and Jamie shifts on the pillows and flushes slightly, dropping eye contact as they mumble out

“I don’t…that uh…that’s never really been my thing.”

And that _is_ a shame, because it’s definitely something Sasha considers her thing, but she can work with that. She tilts Jamie’s head back up for another kiss and hums softly in reassurance when they pull away uncertainly.

“I think I can live with that,” she says with a smirk. “But just in case…why don’t you show me?”

And just like that Jamie’s face is entirely red; but despite the groan and the ‘you are absolutely too much’ that they give her, it doesn’t take a lot of convincing for them to adjust their position on the pillows and guide Sasha’s hands where she had been hoping they would. And they tap at Sasha’s wrist when her hands wander too close to their waist again and even then it’s not a problem. It is absolutely not a problem, with Jamie beneath her like this, hissing breathless curses in her ear and their nails dragging sharp lines down her back.

“Tell me you want me to stop,” Sasha says, because she has to be sure _. Wants_ to be sure.

And Jamie chuckles breathlessly beneath her and says “I don’t want you to stop.”

(And she thinks she could never get tired of this.)

She’s not sure where it goes wrong. Only that she can feel how _close_ Jamie is, and the sounds they’re making are wonderful, and she wants nothing more than this, just this, just a little _more—_

Jamie swears, and it’s sharp and ragged and desperate in an entirely different way than the recent events had given them cause to swear and—

_“Wait…wait.”_

And there’s words now, that Sasha doesn’t want to hear (that Sasha _needs_ to hear) that the Other tries to ignore because they’re _so close!_ and—

_“Sasha, stop. I need…I need you to stop.”_

And they make it through anyway, short and pleading and punctuated by swears and Sasha dismisses the Other entirely out of her mind because this was _important_ and she has to _stop._

“Shit,” Jamie hisses when she does, carefully. Shoving back and away like they want to burrow into the pillows at their back. “ _Fuck_.”

“See, you were saying that a second ago, but it sounded so much nicer then,” Sasha tries through the lump in her throat and the rapidly dwindling pleasure in her gut.

Jamie shoots her a glare through their fingers, and it comes through in slivers of grey and blue and gold. They're trembling again, faintly, and Sasha bites her lip to keep from commenting on that, too.

(Too keep from asking if this was her fault, specifically, or just par for the course.)

“Fuck,” Jamie says again, miserably, voice thick and muffled by their hands. “I really thought I could do this.”

(Her fault, then. Understandable, given her habit of ruining the things she cared about.)

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and hates the way her voice breaks over it. “I—”

“I’m sorry,” Jamie says, at the same time, and then falters, blinking. “What?”

She starts, meeting the confusion and misery in Jamie’s face with a mirror expression of her own.

“I said, I was sorry,” Sasha repeats carefully. “If I pushed too hard and ruined it before you were—” 

“No, wait. Shut up,” Jamie snaps, and their hands lower from their face enough that Sasha can see the sharp twist of their mouth. “You’re not…this is all me and my…you didn’t do anything.”

(Well. That’s a first.)

“Jamie,” she starts, but they flinch away when she tries to reach for them again, and the sharpness around their mouth twists even further.

“Fuck,” they hiss, eyes flickering. “Sorry, just…I can’t, I’m sorry… _fuck_!”

(It had definitely sounded much nicer when they’d been saying it a few seconds ago, Sasha decides.)

“Ok,” she says, instead of any of the other things digging through her mind. “Ok, alright. I’ll be downstairs.”

Jamie makes a low noise, not looking up from their hands this time, and Sasha takes a steadying breath before climbing carefully off the bed. The movement makes Jamie look up, then, and their brow furrows, eyes wide.

“What?”

“I’ll be downstairs,” she says again. “I’ll…I’ll heat up your coffee for you. When you’re ready….”

She lets it hang there, lets Jamie decide what to make of her offer. And she adjusts her clothes and buttons her own shirt back up and goes back downstairs. The neon numbers of the microwave blink steadily, telling her that it’s not quite 11.

(The whole disastrous thing had happened in less than an hour.)

Sasha thinks it must be a personal record, and wonders if next time she can ruin something in forty-five minutes. Just keep going and going until everyone she cares about flees at the very sight of her.

“You…you actually heated up the coffee.”

She blinks, and looks up to see Jamie hovering at the entryway. They’d changed, now wearing a much softer and flowy-looking pair of pants and a shirt with loose sleeves that gave off the illusion of being sheer. They’re not wearing their glasses or rings, either, though Sasha just catches a glimpse of bracelets when Jamie moves and the sleeves shift.

“Yeah, I did,” she says, and Jamie’s face does a complicated flip before settling into something deliberately neutral. “I also made myself some, I hope you don’t mind.”

She slips a little of her signature cheek into it, and Jamie smirks, just a little, and accepts their coffee cup from her hand. They perch in one of the chairs at the tiny kitchen table, and Sasha debates a moment before taking the only other chair across from them.

She wants to apologize again, but Jamie ends up beating her to it.

“I…uh. I’m sorry, again,” they say, biting at their lips between words and avoiding her eyes. “I didn’t mean to…ruin the moment.”

“Was it me?” Sasha asks, giving into her selfishness for just a second.

“Hm?” Jamie says into their mug, eyes focusing somewhere past Sasha’s shoulder. She’s almost grateful for the lack of eye contact, if only because she doesn’t think she’d be able to handle the intensity of those eyes right now.

“Was it me?” she repeats, gripping her own cup tightly and ignoring the prickling warning the heat of it brings. “Did I….I mean. I know you and Cam…is it _me_?”

“Oh,” Jamie says blandly, eyes flickering to hers for an instant before darting away again. “Oh. No, that’s…I could honestly not care less about _that_. That’s not…that doesn’t matter to me.”

(It’s not because she’s female, then. Which is good, but then it also means it’s just because it’s _her_ , and Sasha thinks that that’s far worse than her initial fear.)

“Ok,” she says lamely, because what the hell else is she supposed to say to that?

“No…shit,” Jamie says, and when Sasha glances up it’s to see they’re fidgeting with the midnight blue bracelet around their wrist. ‘Jamie, They/Them’ flashes and twists in and out of the starry pattern and Sasha feels guilt wrenching her stomach apart even further.

“This is...just like the party,” she manages hoarsely, and Jamie blinks over at her. “That Night…when I kissed you.”

(When she’d manipulated them into kissing her. She’d pushed, then, too. And now…)

“You know I wouldn’t have if I truly didn’t want to, right?”

It’s her turn to look up in surprise, and she had been right about the eye contact because Jamie is staring at her and the look they’re giving her is almost too much.

“It’s not _you_ that I have a problem with, Sasha,” Jamie says firmly. “And it wasn’t that tonight, either. I just…it was a little too much all at once and I thought I could manage it but sometimes it catches me off guard and I couldn’t…I couldn’t. I’m sorry.”

That’s a lot. It’s a lot and so Sasha picks it apart carefully and slots each bit of information away carefully. First, Jamie wanted her, too. That was…phew that was a _lot_. Great but. Wow. Second, it wasn’t her so much as her method which, she understood. She’d been working on it, at least. Trying to. So that was…that was good. That was manageable. (The Other disagreed, but well, that was _their_ problem, not Sasha’s.)

And third….

“It catches you off guard?” Sasha repeats, hoping for some clarification. “What—?”

Jamie clears their throat pointedly, and then sighs, expression twisting again as they say “Dysphoria’s a _bitch_. And most of the time I can deal with it, but it varies and is horrifically inconsistent and it doesn’t help shit at all when _this_ comes into play and uh…yeah. It’s uh…it’s great.”

Sasha realizes that the gold had leaked back into Jamie’s eyes again, overtaking the usual coloring brought about by the grey in their eyes until all she could see was the influence of the ethereal.

“I’m sorry,” she says again, and means it with far more certainty than her doubts had let her before. “I didn’t…I had no idea.”

“Yeah, well, that’s kinda the point,” Jamie says tightly. “I don’t really make a habit of advertising my shitty brain days and anyway, I usually have enough of a handle on it. Usually.”

But of course something so intimate would bring it about, and Sasha should have thought about that, should have _asked_ if there was anything she could have done. Or should have not done. Or any number of things other than just straight up pinning Jamie to the wall.

“What can I do?”

Jamie was frowning into their now empty mug, but looks back up at her words. “What do you mean?”

“Differently,” she clarifies, fingers spreading from the sides of her cup. “Or to help. I don’t…I want to do things differently than before.”

Something softens in Jamie’s eyes even as their jaw tightens slightly, and they tent their fingers beneath their chin.

“I have no idea what to say to that,” Jamie says lowly. “Because I know you really mean that…I know that’s entirely _you_ and it’s…unsettling.”

“Thanks?”

It’s enough to get Jamie to smile, actually smile, and Sasha thinks she might do anything to see that directed at her more.

“Ok,” they say, finally. “Ok sure.”

And so they sit there together at the kitchen table in that tiny space so vastly different from Sasha’s own, and they talk about sex. And it’s not in the slightest bit glamorous or arousing but with each point brought up Sasha could feel the void between them growing less and less, and leaves with a far greater understanding and balance than she’d ever had before.

(And, when she finally steps into the stillness of her house at well past twelve, she could feel a tether that hadn’t been there a moment ago.)

And she decides that it was definitely worth it, and that maybe she kind of likes this version of herself a lot better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two Birds by Regina Spektor 
> 
> 8 by Billie Eilish 
> 
> ilomilo by Billie Eilish 
> 
> Spectrum (Say my name) by Florence+The Machine


End file.
